


As Sweet As Devotion

by cafephan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Chaptered, Marriage, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 44,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8617441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafephan/pseuds/cafephan
Summary: Sick of a failure of a love life, Dan applies for a show which claims to pair him with his scientifically proven soulmate, in both personality and appearance alike. The catch? He’ll see and meet them for the very first time on their wedding day. 
He’s paired with a man named Phil, and thus begins the rest of his life, marital bliss with a complete stranger.





	1. One.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married today, Dan.” Ebony gushes, straightening out her best friend's tie and brushing off his suit.

“Yeah,” he replies with a deep breath, and his gaze momentarily meets the huge camera lens reflected in the mirror beside him, the bright red light temporarily off. “Crazy, right?”

Ebony smiles. “I always told you it would happen.” She lightly punches him in the arm, causing a shaky laugh from him.

“In these circumstances?” he asks, pointing behind them towards the camera.

The redhead bites her lip, and places a hand on his shoulder.

“Listen, these people have paired you with your soulmate. If they haven’t, we can sue them for false advertising or something. But please try to be positive about this, it’s your fucking wedding day! The happiest day of your life!”

Dan presses his lips together, and feels tears involuntarily build up behind his eyes, he blinks them away before they have a chance to betray him.

“Ebs, I don’t know anything about them. I don’t even know their _gender!_ Knowing my luck and my track record, it’ll be my worst relationship yet, they’ll hate me, or they just won’t show. Don’t you dare try to tell me that isn’t the kind of luck I’ve had so far in life.”

“The show really hasn’t told you anything about them?”

“I got a call from the network a month ago telling me I’ve been paired with someone and the wedding was in a month, everything had been taken care of. That’s all, and I’ve had a camera tailing me ever since."

It isn’t the first time he’s thought of dropping out of the show. He didn’t imagine he’d be a very good husband, he’s never been able to keep a relationship longer than a couple of months, there's clearly something wrong with him. It's probably in the other person’s best interest that he drops out.

Ebony gently grasps his arm, bringing him into a controllable silence, and he works on calming down his breathing.

“No point in getting in a tizz,” she speaks softly, “This is literally what you signed up for, you’re marrying the person you’re most suited for in the entire world.”

“The person I’m most suited for that also applied for the show,” Dan corrects her, and Ebony huffs in frustration.

She opens her mouth to reply, probably to tell him to stop being so difficult, but is interrupted by the door swinging open, and one of the cameramen Dan had become borderline friends with due to him filming Dan for the past month or so, Terry, came to stand behind his camera and shoots Dan a thumbs up to signal he's beginning to record.

Ebony smiles courteously at Terry and makes her way out of the room, knowing that the show needs footage of Dan before the whole ceremony gets underway. She leaves after a final reassurance and hug.

“Can you believe the day’s finally here?” Dan asks nervously, and Terry smiles.

“How are you feeling?” he asks for the benefit of the show.

“I mean,” Dan turns to face the camera, but makes eye contact with Terry instead, “It’s understandable to be nervous as all hell, right?”

“I think that’s standard for anyone getting married, never mind someone in your position.”

“Touché.”

They share a laugh, and Terry asks him a few more questions which Dan answers truthfully and genuinely before one of the show’s producers bustles into the room and informs them it's time.

Terry nods and packs up his camera equipment and carries the device on his shoulder out of the room, calling a final wish of good luck to Dan as he left.

And then he was alone.

Just him and his reflection, the last time he would ever be, at least metaphorically, alone in life.

His past self would’ve thought he was past the line of insane to even consider applying to such a show, he would’ve laughed at the concept. He didn’t believe in soulmates up until he got his heart broken for the first time, viciously stomped on and ripped to pieces, and every time after that. His yearning for romance has only grown as the goal seemed further and further away.

Tens of thousands of people applied for the show, he was told so when he first applied, and that it was extremely unlikely they would find a match for him when there were so many other people out there, probably better matched couples, but here he is.

Walking down the corridor to marry his supposed soulmate.

He was told by a runner of the show that his nearly spouse was already waiting for him inside, as were both of their wedding parties. From his frozen position in the doorway, he can already see some people, but they haven’t noticed him, everyone is facing forwards, listening to the priest who Dan presumes will be marrying him and the stranger.

It seems to happen in an extended blur.

Dan was simply observing everyone else, trying to make sense of when he should be entering, when he heard the priest say something involving “please rise”, everyone did, and all attention turned to the door, where Dan is still stood.

He takes that as his cue.

He regrets not asking anyone to walk down the aisle with him, he needs the support. Especially considering the whole thing will eventually be televised for potentially millions of people to see. Some song he's never heard before begins softly playing to mark his arrival, he doesn’t know anything which is going to happen for the rest of the day, the show took care of everything. All Dan has to do was turn up, say _I Do_ and smile for the cameras.

His vows. He has to say his vows. He has to promise the rest of his life to a complete stranger. And a part of him is undeniably thrilled by it.

His gaze flicks over the crowd as he slowly makes his way up the aisle (he refrains from looking directly forwards, for some reason only wanting to see the other person right when he gets to the front) and on the left side of the room sits approximately a hundred people of which Dan has never seen before. He deduces they must be his spouse-to-be’s guests. Or actors hired by the network.

He dips his head when he notices how fewer guests he has on the right side of the room in comparison. But his grandparents smile warmly at him and wave, his cousins shoot him supportive thumbs up, Ebony mouths ‘you’re doing great’, and the few friends he’s bothered to invite all smile supportively at him. His brother claps him on the shoulder when he reaches the end of the aisle, and nods behind Dan, silently telling him it's time to turn around.

He rationalises the situation in his mind. If the person he's marrying seems an absolute asshole, Ebony wouldn’t have reacted the way she did, and his grandparents would look less than pleased. But everyone was smiling, is smiling, so it can’t be as bad as his paranoia is making him believe.

So he turns around.

The first thing he notices is his soon-to-be husband’s eyes. A majestic blue with flecks of other colours he can’t describe well enough. A friendly face and a wide smile, and Dan watches as the man exhales. Dan silently prays it's a sigh of relief.

“Hi” he whispers, and Dan’s throat feels like sandpaper, it takes a few seconds to psych himself up enough to reply.

To say he's in awe is putting it mildly.

“Hi” he replies shakily, and the man in front of him smiles even wider, and nods to the priest.

“Shall we begin?” the priest asks them both, and the man – whose name Dan still doesn’t know – nods, and both he and the priest turn to Dan.

“Y-Yes,” he swallows thickly, “Please do.”

\--

Dan listens intently to the priest, and repeats when necessary.

He learns that the man’s name is Philip Lester, the name suits him. Daniel and Philip. Dan tosses the names in his mind, along with their surnames. Will they be Howell-Lester? Lester-Howell? Will they only have one of their surnames? Will Philip be insistent about something like that, a family tradition or something? He definitely still wants Howell in his name, regardless.

He keeps stealing glances at the man beside him, he can’t help himself, and his heart feels as if it's in his throat when the priest asks for the rings.

A little boy from the left side of the room walks up and hands the ring cushion to the priest, and Philip ruffles the boy’s hair.

“Great job, Ty!” he whispers, and the boy hugs onto his legs. Most of the audience aww, and Dan feels a part of him melt at the sight, it's beyond precious. “Okay, go sit back down with your mummy!” he whispers again, and the boy nods and detaches himself, then toddles back over to the left side of the room where a woman picks him up and sits him on her lap.

“My nephew,” Philip informs Dan with a fond smile, and Dan nods in understanding, not really knowing how else to respond.

They move onto the ring exchange.

Dan again listens intently to the priest and does as he is instructed, promises to love this extremely attractive stranger eternally and unequivocally, no matter the consequence. He slips the ring onto Philip’s finger, and watches on as the man smiles again, and holds up his hand to get a better view of the ring as it reflects on the bright lights.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises to the priest for holding up the proceedings, “I just never thought I’d be able to have the chance to do this…” he trails off, and twirls his hands in every possible angle to see as much of the ring as he can. Dan chuckles to himself at the sight, but he wonders what Philip could’ve possibly meant.

“That’s quite alright, Philip,” the priest assures him though Dan had a feeling he means the opposite. “Shall we now continue?”

“Of course,” Philip blushes in embarrassment, takes a deep breath and takes the ring meant for Dan from the cushion, and takes Dan’s hand. Dan’s heartrate increases to a crazy pace, he can practically feel his heart thumping in his ears.

“I Do.” Philip responds to the priest as he slips the ring onto Dan’s finger, and Dan feels as if he's going to faint right there and then.

“Well done, gentlemen” the priest whispers for only them to hear before raising his voice to be heard by everyone else in the room once again.

Philip keeps hold of Dan’s hand loosely as they both turn their attention to the priest along with everyone else in the room, and Dan hears a muffled squeal from somewhere on the right side of the room, and he smiles to himself, just knowing it's Ebony, his fellow hopeless romantic.

“Now we have had the exchange of vows and rings, there is nothing left to do but for me to take great pleasure in announcing Daniel and Philip as husbands!” the priest announces, and the guests erupt in applause, everyone rising to their feet.

The kiss goes by in a flash, Dan barely registers it. He wasn’t expecting anything over the top considering they haven’t even had a conversation yet, but he knows for sure that he isn’t already detesting the marriage. Not in the slightest. He can’t bring himself to stop smiling, he feels giddy, happy.

Philip raises their (now tightly) interlocked hands up in the air in the style of celebrating a big victory, causing the guests to applaud louder, some woop and holler loudly – Dan can make out some of the voices as those belonging to his friends, he laughs.

“What do we do now?” he asks, and Philip simply grins and pulls him forward, back onto the aisle into a slow walk.

They make sure to smile widely into the camera as they make their way out of the room and into the corridor, where one of the show’s producers is waiting. She bids her congratulations then ushers them out of the building onto the front steps, then ducks back inside to fetch both of their closest friends and family for pictures, leaving the two of them alone, except for the various members of crew who are setting up the camera and informing the limo driver of the location of the reception.

“We… just did that,” Dan states in disbelief, and looks down at his ring, which somehow looks more real now contrasted against the sunlight.

“Surreal, isn’t it?” Philip replies with a smile, looking down at his own ring.

“Just slightly,” Dan answers modestly. “But in this minute or so we have until things get hectic again, tell me about yourself, Philip.”

“Please, call me Phil. People using my full name unnerves me.”

“Along the same lines, call me Dan. Same reason.”

Phil laughs.

“Your name suits you.”

“Dan and Phil. Such exotic names, truly,” Dan jokes, and Phil nods.

“Took the words right out of my mouth” he agrees.

A single syllable slips out of his mouth following it, but the rest of the sentence is lost to the afternoon air as the producer dashes back out, a stampede of footsteps behind her as seemingly everyone that was previously in the building now fans out behind Dan and Phil, ready for the photos.

Two members of crew from the show’s hair and makeup department quickly run over to fix Dan and Phil’s suits and hair, and the photographer only takes his place behind the camera when hair and makeup deem the newlyweds fit for photographing.

Terry is beside the photographer with his own camera, filming the whole thing, and shoots Dan another thumbs up when their gazes meet. Dan reciprocates it, and Phil waves to him too. Phil then waves to a different cameraman who is on the photographer’s other side, Dan presumes Phil has the same relationship with that cameraman that he has with Terry, he’s been filmed for a month just as Dan has, after all.

As the photographer counts down from ten and everyone gets into position, Phil takes hold of Dan’s hand again and gently intertwines their fingers, and squeezes his hand softly.

What seems like a million pictures later, Dan feels as if his jaw is going to fall off, he's been smiling for so long, every picture being straight after the last with no break inbetween. Plus, he's still feeling giddily happy, drunk on the whole experience, the thrill, the adrenaline.

“Thank you very much, everyone!” the same producer as before speaks into a microphone as if she couldn’t be heard already. “We’ll now all be heading over to the reception, please take the directions from our runner situated on the right of the car park as you leave. But for now, please give it up for the Howell-Lesters!” she holds up a hand and points towards Dan and Phil, their cue to head to the car. Everyone erupts in thunderous applause once again (Dan even hears a few wolf whistles).

The limo pulls off before they even have time to fasten their seatbelts, sending the two crashing into one another as they pass a sharp turn.

“Fuck I’m sorry,” Dan apologises as he fumbles with his seatbelt.

“Don’t apologise,” Phil waves off his worry, “It’s not your fault.”

Phil speaks again after a few seconds.

“So how are you feeling, husband?” he asks with a smirk, almost as if testing the word out.

Dan’s stomach flips, but he has absolutely no idea how to feel.

He supposes he has the rest of his life to figure it out.


	2. Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify since I know some people were confused: this fic is NOT a soulmate au!

“Are you ready for this?” Phil asks, turning to face Dan who stands rigid beside him.

They've been instructed to stay outside of the room where the reception is being held, they assume so the show can get the cameras ready and make sure the guests are all in position as to not ruin the entrance shot.

“I’m… at my own wedding reception.” Dan spells it out more for himself than as a response, and Phil laughs.

“Surreal, isn’t it?”

“I always told myself I’d never get married….”

Phil fidgets. “Oh.” He pauses for a moment. “Really?”

Dan smiles to himself. “Not like that. More in the sense that every relationship I’ve ever had has crashed and burned and I was certain nobody would ever be willing to settle down with me.”

“Well, I’m considering myself lucky to be stood here with you right now."

Dan turns to face him for the first time since they arrived.

“Sarcasm?”

Phil rolls his eyes.

“Dan I wouldn’t lie or joke about something like that. We’re legally married, for crying out loud. I wouldn’t have said my vows if there wasn’t at least some truth to it.”

“The show would have given you hell if you didn’t do it…” Dan dips his head, staring down at his shoes as if they've suddenly become a million times more interesting.

“Then they would’ve axed our episode, what a tragic loss for them. It’s not like they have seven shows a season and two in backup, just in case. The show would’ve been fine. The point is you need to stop worrying. I mean, about what you were worrying about before. Because nerves about standing outside our wedding reception is rightfully worrisome because, you know-“

“You’re babbling,” Dan interjects with a grin, and Phil playfully nudges him.

“I'm just  _saying,”_ he continues, “it’s understandable to be nervous about this right now, considering all our friends and family are in there waiting to see our first arrival as a married couple.”

Dan scuffs his shoe against the carpet, and his hands ball into his fists in his suit pockets, his gaze back on the floor.

“Yeah,” he agrees to make Phil smile. “ _All_ our friends and family…” he repeats in a whisper, his lips pulling into a frown.

Before any other words can be exchanged, one of the side doors swing open and a member of the show’s crew dashes over to the two, a man from hair and makeup following behind.

“Got to be perfect for showtime, huh lads?” the man grins, and Dan forced a smile in response.

Even after everything that has happened, he still isn’t fully used to being on camera, never mind for a mainstream show.

It begins to seem as if the man will never leave, he grows frustrated with a few of Dan’s hairs, and Phil laughs as he watches Dan’s expression turn from uncomfortable to plain frustration. By the time the man does leave, Dan’s scalp feels like a pin cushion, and his face feels caked with the excessive amount of makeup that has been slapped on it for the benefit of the show.

“Do you feel violated too?” he asks Phil.

“You’ve been through a lot more than I have,” he replies with a smirk, “my hair is just more obedient than yours.”

Dan proceeds to mutter a string of unpleasantries and profanities under his breath, up until the point the crew member returns from wherever she had ran off to.

“Listen out for your cue. Everyone’s eyes will be on you, as well as the camera, so big smiles!” she takes the liberty of demonstrating a ‘big smile’. Dan has to stifle back his laughter, but it only partly works, the sound that slips his lips causes Phil to look over in amusement.

The crew member, without another word, goes back inside the room.

“Nice laugh” Phil comments.

“Oh come _on,”_ Dan nods towards the room, referencing the crew member. “You’re telling me that this,” he pauses to imitate the ‘big smile’ which was demonstrated to them before, “didn’t tickle that funny bone of yours? Struck nothing in this hollow tin cage?” he dares to poke Phil’s chest.

“Hey,” Phil holds up a hand, and for a second Dan begins to panic, “I just know how to compose myself in funny situations. Unlike _some.”_ He then pokes Dan’s chest playfully, and they both burst into laughter.

It feels easy, lighthearted, comfortable.

“We should probably listen out for our cue,” Phil reminds him a few seconds later, and Dan nods. He had almost lost sight of why they were there in the first place. He isn’t sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

\--

The reception is so much easier than Dan first assumed.

Everyone, as soon as the camera was switched off for a while, is so at ease, and it's just like a standard wedding reception (which Dan had plenty of experience with, the phrase ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ was one which had always rung true), old couples swirling around on the dancefloor and adults dancing with children, smiling as the children squealed with delight and enjoyment.

Dan and Phil are told to make their rounds with regards to the guests’ tables, thank them for coming and such. They share a look of amusement, silently wondering why the show assumed they wouldn’t do that themselves anyway.

They mainly stick to their own guests, splitting up temporarily to speak to their individual friends and family, but Ebony is far too quick to scold Dan for it.

“Go talk to _his_ family and _his_ friends!” she insists, nodding towards where Phil is sat with his family, laughing at a joke someone told. “You see us sad sacks all the time!” she gestures to the table they're currently sat at, surrounded by Dan’s immediate family.

“Sad sacks? Speak for yourself” his brother, Harvey, mumbles as he takes a long sip of champagne.

“She has a point, Harv,” his granddad, Nigel, jokes.

Ebony smiles at him gratefully then turns her attention back to Dan, who has taken to twiddling his thumbs in his lap.

“Why are you still here?” she demands impatiently. “Go!”

Dan doesn’t know why he decides to listen to her. Pretty much every step he takes, he turns back, but every time Ebony shoos him back, up until the point it's so painfully obvious how awkward he felt, Phil is waiting for him.

“My parents want to know why you’re pacing back and forth, and my brother is convinced that it’s because you’re wondering how to get out of this marriage, so if you could come over and clarify that would be great,” he smiles.

Dan silently nods and followed him over.

Phil’s family are incredibly welcoming, so much so Dan wonders if there's some kind of catch he doesn’t know about. That or it's forced. They all stand up to shake his hand and hug him, and offer their congratulations.

His mind is far too frazzled to remember anyone’s name – he'll have plenty of time for that – and the crew are almost military-standard with their schedule.

With the exception of their families, they aren’t allowed to stay at any one table for longer than five minutes. The show only needs a two second shot of them speaking to everyone, nothing more. They have a lot to get through, apparently.

They make a bid for freedom whilst the producers’ backs are turned.

Dan could have gone alone, but he finds himself tugging on Phil’s sleeve as he leaves, urging him to go with him. He isn’t too sure why. They slip out of a back entrance of the building, and hide behind a tall brick wall, out of sight from anyone who isn’t two steps away from them.

“I thought I’d enjoy being in the spotlight on my wedding day,” Phil laughs, “But this really pushes the limits.”

“I’m fucking exhausted.” Dan can’t stifle the first yawn of many that have been brewing in him pretty much since they exchanged rings.

It catches him off-guard, evidently he's more tired than he thought, and the force of the yawn causes him to stagger forward, but Phil gently grasps his wrist, keeping him upright.

“That’s not a good sign,” he comments, “Will you be able to do this?”

“Not well,” Dan replies, before another yawn escapes him.

“Do you think we can get them to end the reception early?”

Dan looks up at him. “When the show has paid fuck knows how much money to put all of this on and they don’t have the shots they need yet? No way.”

Phil presses his lips together. “It’s not a good thing when one of the grooms is half asleep, though.”

They stay silent for a while, both leaning against the wall.

“We haven’t even had our first dance yet.” Dan reminds Phil.

Phil smiles. “Yeah, that’s kind of a pivotal part of the reception process…”

“Isn’t it surprising that they haven’t ordered us to have it yet?”

There's no response from Phil, and Dan turns to face him, to see Phil is on his phone, scrolling through various text message threads.

“Oh I’m so glad I’m good enough company for you.” He says sarcastically, and Phil shakes his head.

“Look,” he pushes his phone into Dan’s hands, and scrolls from thread to thread, four different threads of messages asking where he had gotten to, and that the crew is starting to get pissed.

“Let’s not keep our adoring public waiting any longer, I guess,” Dan says as he hands Phil back his phone.

“Are you feeling any more awake?”

“Not at all, I may collapse any second.”

“I’ll try my best to keep you upright and conscious.” Phil grins, pulling on Dan’s arm to get him to stop leaning on the wall too.

Dan then follows him back inside (more than a few steps behind, he is very much trudging along, his arms are beginning to feel like dead weights).

“You’re not really making an effort to hide it, are you?” Phil turns on his heels and watches as Dan trudges towards him.

“I’ll get there eventually, you just keep going,” Dan gestures for him to continue walking, and he does.

“If you do collapse in the middle of the dancefloor I’m afraid I am going to have to get my brother to film it on my phone for me,” Phil calls over his shoulder, followed by a laugh which bounced from the walls.

Dan yawns, though all his focus is in trying not to do exactly that.

“It’ll be a funny story to tell the grandkids one day,” he replies, an almost automatic response he doesn’t realise he’s said until he collides into Phil’s back, the other man having stopped in his tracks.

“Grandkids?” Phil asks quietly.

“One day at a time, tiger,” Dan punches him lightly in the shoulder as he passes. “Now are we going or what? People are waiting for us.”

“You’ve certainly gotten a second wind.” Phil observes after shaking himself free of whatever induced his temporary paralysis.

“Our love has given me the boost I need to keep going, what can I say.”

“You mean that coffee machine I can see at the end of this corridor?”

“You caught me.”

\--

Dan isn’t particularly good at dancing at the best of times. But in a room full of hundreds of people, all of whom are watching him intently, as well as multiple large cameras filming him to at some point be on mainstream tv? He's laughable.

Thankfully for him, so is Phil.

“We’re like two giraffes on ice,” Phil whispers, and Dan has to bite his lip to prevent himself from laughing.

“Just style it out, the song’s nearly over.” Dan keeps his voice to a whisper only audible to Phil.

“I can’t believe we didn’t even get to choose the song!”

“What _did_ we get to choose when it comes to today?”

Then their gazes meet, for a painfully long second. Words are forming on the edge of Dan’s tongue, wanting to answer his own question, and with the way Phil is looking at him, he's almost sure they're going to say the same thing.

“Touché.”

Dan swallows thickly, it isn’t what he was expecting. But he notices the momentary frown on Phil’s lips, and the way his gaze flicks downwards for a moment or two, things he would’ve missed if he wasn’t studying him so closely.

They don’t share another word. The song draws to a close, and they're met with thunderous applause from all of their guests.

Before they even have a chance to think, they're ushered over to the buffet table to cut the cake. The producers for some reason insist that Phil holds the knife, and Dan rests his hand on top of Phil’s. They do, and Dan's surprised to find that his hand fits atop Phil’s perfectly, comfortably, and he dares to stroke the side of Phil’s hand with his fingertip after the first slice has been made. Everything just fit.

“So are you excited about what’s to come?” one of Dan’s oldest friends, Nick, asks as he makes his way over with Ebony after the cake-cutting, and after Phil is swept away by his friends back onto the dancefloor. Dan is sitting alone on a table near the back of the room, taking a minute to himself whilst the cameras are busy filming Phil having fun with the guests.

“You mean sleep? I can’t fucking wait.” His reply causes Nick to burst into laughter, and he places a hand on Dan’s shoulder.

“Oh Danny, sweet sweet innocent Danny,” he teases, and Dan swats his hand away.

He looks desperately at Ebony for help, and she places her hand on Dan’s other shoulder, the same mock-sympathy as Nick demonstrated.

“You know what typically happens between the newlyweds after the ceremony right? When they’re all alone?”

“ _All alone”_ Nick repeats, and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Dan can feel beads of nervous perspiration forming on his forehead.

“Surely they don’t expect us to-“

“We’re not saying _they_ do” Nick interjects, and nods towards the dancefloor, where Phil is dancing with Tyson in his arms.

“But what if someone else _wants_ to?” Ebony finishes, and the two share an amused look at seeing how pale Dan goes at the very suggestion.

“I love you both but there’s no way I’m discussing this with you.”

Ebony ruffles his hair.

“I know it’s been a long time for you, go get what’s on offer to you!”

Dan makes eye contact with her. “Nothing is on offer to me.”

“Oh please,” Nick waves his hand dismissively after taking a swig of champagne, “Spare me from this innocent act.”

“We’re just saying that-“

“I know exactly what you’re saying, heads in the fucking gutters, the both of you!” Dan rolls his eyes. “Now can you please leave before I implode from embarrassment on your behalves?”

His friends both burst into laughter, but stand up nonetheless.

“Alright, alright, we’re gone. I’m sure you want more quality time with your hubby, right?” Ebony teases, and Nick clinks their glasses.

“Goodbye, annoying ass friends.” Dan waves them off, and they both walk off towards the dancefloor with smirks on their faces and sharing occasional sniggers.

Dan watches as they smile at Phil as they pass him, and Ebony dances with him a little. Nick looks over and winks, and Dan places his head in his hands, feeling his cheeks practically on fire.


	3. Three.

The night draws to a close quicker than they expect.

The producers announce they've gotten enough footage for the night and guests are free to leave when they want, and the party begins to empty out soon after.

Dan and Phil are ushered out almost immediately, after a two minute period to bid goodbye to their guests and loved ones (their families are also staying in the same hotel for the night), and soon find themselves back in the same car as before.

As soon as the car door closes, leaving them alone once again, Dan lets out a yawn, the coffee already having worn off.

“At least you don’t have to hide it anymore,” Phil states in amusement, looking up from his phone.

Dan smiles and leans his head against the window, letting his eyes droop closed. It feels glorious.

It only seems like a couple of seconds before Phil is gently shaking him awake, the driver shooting him daggers.

“We’re at the hotel,” Phil whispers, and Dan merely nods, and allows himself to be pulled out of the car.

He lets Phil do all the talking, give their information exactly as the producers had instructed, and simply trudges behind.

The room is extravagant and luxurious beyond words, but Dan doesn’t have anywhere near enough energy to marvel at it. He walks over to the four-post bed and collapses face first onto the bouncy duvet. His eyes immediately close and a pleasant warmth of contentment spreads through his body.

“I’m not letting you sleep like that, you’ll put your back out,” Phil says as he walks over and gently kicks Dan’s ankle, trying to get him to move.

“I’m comfy,” Dan replied, voice completely muffled due to his positioning.

“Your friends also told me that you always have to sleep on the left side of the bed, and that’s not where you are.”

Nick and Ebony are really trying to start something.

“They were bullshitting.” Dan repositions himself so he's leaning on his cheek and can be heard better.

“You can have whichever side you want,” Phil shrugs, “I’ll sleep over there...”

He nods towards the other side of the room, and Dan follows his gaze. He's implying he'll sleep on the chaise lounge, though ridiculously extravagant and probably more expensive than Dan could ever afford, he isn’t about to let Phil sleep there when the bed is more than big enough for the two of them.

“Don’t be stupid, we can both fit here.” Dan can hear his own voice getting quieter, the more sleep is catching up to him.

“Are you sure?”

Dan nods, then notices at some point that his eyes have drifted shut again, and he no longer has the energy to fight it.

A few seconds later, he feels himself getting lighter, and his eyes shoot open. Phil has picked him up, bridal style, and is carrying him to the other side of the bed. Almost immediately, his eyes close again.

“I told you that I don’t have a preference of which side I sleep on,” Dan says quietly, the highest volume he can muster. Even though he's lying, Nick and Ebony know exactly what they're saying after countless years of close friendship.

“Though that may be true,” Phil gently places him down on the bed and pulls the covers over him, “Do you want to know a secret?”

Dan nods.

“I always have to sleep on the right side,” he whispers, his breath brushing the shell of Dan’s ear, causing him to dither slightly.

“How convenient,” Dan replies, and swallows thickly.

Silence follows. He can feel himself drifting off to sleep, even more so when the lights go out and the bed dips beside him.

“Dan, you awake?” Phil whispers a few minutes later.

He waits for a fair few seconds, and gets no reply.

“I’m really glad I married you…” his voice is barely a whisper now, and he prays to any collective higher power that Dan can somehow hear him.

He can't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a teensy tiny filler chapter to progress the storyline.
> 
> I'm writing the next chapter as we speak don't worry, I just didn't want to add the next chapter onto this one as it's a new day and the start of a new scene and idk it just made more sense to publish it separately so yeah i hope you enjoyed this tiny little thing and stay tuned for the next chapter really soon!


	4. Four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone was wondering, the title of this fic comes from Your Love by Little Mix, I advise checking the song out because it's amazing and i love it a lot
> 
> on with the chapter!

“So how was the big night?” Ebony asks as she sits opposite Dan at breakfast.

They had to check out of their rooms by midday, and the guests will all be heading home soon.

“I didn’t hear any bedsprings,” Nick adds with a snigger, and Dan punches him in the shoulder, sending Nick’s orange juice sloshing out of the glass and onto his lap. Ebony hides a laugh behind her hand.

“You deserved that,” Dan mumbles, but Nick simply ruffles his friend’s hair before getting up to pour another drink.

“We both just fell asleep. I told you nothing would happen.”

“But did he want anything to happen?”

Dan casts a glance over to Phil, who sits further down the table, deep in conversation with his brother and a couple of friends.

“Of course he didn’t.”

Nick and Ebony share a look.

Dan has rarely been more shocked than when they drop the topic.

“Right, I need to get back to my room and prepare for the interview the producers told me I need to have.” Nick places his hands on the table and stands up from his chair. Dan and Ebony both watch him.

“Interview?” Dan enquires curiously.

“We both have to have them,” Nick gestures between himself and Ebony, “Apparently the network want to have our opinions as your best friends on how the whole thing went. I assume Phil’s friends will be doing the same.”

“I’d hardly call you my best friend.” Dan smirks, and Nick throws a discarded croissant at his head, leaving crumbs on his fringe.

“You deserved that,” Nick mocks Dan’s earlier words and they share a laugh before he leaves for his room.

Dan turns to Ebony, who seems to be avoiding his gaze.

“Ebs, what’s going on?”

She fidgets uncomfortably.

“We’re having breakfast, obviously…” she replies quietly.

“You’re being weird and a minute or two ago you were fine.”

“I’m just sad I have to leave this hotel, do you realise the network paid for all the room service? I had three ice cream sundaes sent to my room at two in the morning, I’m never going to get that luxury again!”

Dan has a feeling she isn’t being entirely truthful, but gives her the benefit of the doubt.

“What about when you get married?”

She meets his gaze and stares at him as if the answer is obvious.

“Yes because I’m so obviously going to be able to afford this when I get married.” She rolls her eyes playfully.

Dan opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by a booming voice from the doorway.

“Dan, Phil, a word please?” one of the producers requests, and Dan politely excuses himself from Ebony and sets off for the impromptu meeting.

Phil arrives a couple of seconds after Dan, and they share a small smile as Phil comes to stand beside him.

“As quick as you can, go into the room at the end of the corridor, and Terry will fill you in on what we want you to do. Thanks!” the producer gushes before nodding towards the corridor and dashing away.

“Not ominous at all,” Phil comments as they both continue to stare at the space where the producer was stood only a second ago.

“At least it’s Terry meeting us there, he’s our saving grace in this.” Dan shrugs before turning and walking towards the room in question.

Phil follows without another word.

\--

Terry is adjusting some feature or another on his camera when the newlyweds enter the room, which is unsurprisingly grand and luxurious in appearance and stature.

“How’re things, Tez?” Dan greets casually, and the man narrows his eyes.

“I let you call me that once as a joke, it’s not an open invitation for life.” He replies with a waggling of his finger, causing them both to erupt in laughter. “But before the producers have my head, I’m just going to tell you that the camera’s ready to film for an hour, if you run over that come and find me, and just look over there on the table. Have fun!” he smiles before walking out of the room, leaving Dan and Phil alone.

“So I never got to ask how you slept last night.” Phil's voice is quiet as they make their way over to the table, sitting opposite each other, a pile of papers in the centre.

“Like a log. I was pretty much out like a light the second you said you always had to sleep on the right side.”

Phil presses his lips together, and darts his gaze down to the table.

“You were asleep straight after that?” he asks, voice little more than a mumble.

“Why’d you ask?” Dan asks in rebuttal, and Phil reaches forward to grab the papers and straightens them, giving them his full attention.

Dan notices they were already straightened.

“No reason.” Phil replies almost immediately.

A lengthy silence follows.

“I’m just going to go hit record then…” Dan excuses himself to walk over to the camera and press record, before heading back to the table, into a noticeably heavier atmosphere than before.

“We need to discuss the housing situation.” Phil pushes the papers across the table, a post-it note saying the exact same thing is stuck onto a pile of house and flat advertisements. All with hefty price tags.

Dan gulps.

“Do we… really need these? I mean maybe we could just travel and see each other, or-“

Phil cuts him off with a sigh. For the first time since they had entered the room, he meets Dan’s gaze. Dan notices how tired Phil looks.

Without another word, Phil stands up and Dan’s breath catches in his throat as he goes through every possibility of what could be happening, the most likely of which being Phil storming out because of something he’d said. But, he stops the camera from recording and calmly makes his way back to the table, and regains their eye contact.

“I don’t-“ he pauses to divert his gaze downwards and swallows thickly, “I don’t want to just be a weekend husband to you, Dan.”

He doesn’t know how to respond, how he can respond to that statement. Deep down, Dan doesn’t want that either, but over time he’s built stupid walls up around himself so high that even literal marriage can’t break through them. He's a walking cliché in more ways than one. Phil is something special, he knows that already, but he doesn’t quite know how to define special, how to define Phil. His husband. Literal husband. He has a deep-rooted feeling they want the same things.

But he can’t even begin to articulate that.

“What do you mean by that?”

He already knows.

Phil opens his mouth to reply, but closes it again, as if he's racking his brain for a better explanation.

“I want a life with you.”

It makes Dan’s heart race, he’s dreamed of someone saying those words to him. He's just always figured it would be someone he’d known longer than a day.

“I want that too.” Dan swallows back the multiple bubbles of anxiety, and feels his lips curl upwards as Phil smiles, he truly does have a beautiful smile. Dan hadn't realised just how much he’s missed it. He isn’t sure if he's allowed to be making such observations, even just to himself.

The camera is set to record again, and they begin to look through the various advertisements in silence. The network, when asking for applicants for the show, stated that each couple on the show would receive a bountiful cheque to use for whatever they desired. The most logical would obviously be a house, hence why the show was trying to push them in that direction.

When the stress of such a big decision overcomes Dan (which happens multiple times, he isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to deal with being an adult), he distracts himself by glancing over at Phil, who is always studying each piece of paper closely, evidently a more put-together and well-rounded person. Dan envies him, but also admires him. He also admires the hollows in Phil’s cheeks when the other man bites the inside of his cheeks in concentration, and how his jawline is somehow more defined than ever as he makes notes on various houses.

Dan is certain he’s spent more time studying Phil than he has any of the houses in his respective pile. Whether Phil has noticed or not, he doesn’t know.

Terry comes back an hour or so later to check how they're getting on, and they've narrowed down their choices to three potential houses (two from Phil’s pile, one from Dan’s). They have to put down a deposit before the network would pay them, they had been told.

“Yet even more deliberation for you, boys” Terry smiles sympathetically as he begins to pack up the camera. “But I have to go and interview your friends, do you think you can entertain yourselves for an hour or two?”

He sends a wink in Dan’s direction, causing the brunet to blush.

“I’m sure we’ll find something,” Phil smiles, which Terry returns before leaving the room. “Want to get ahead on these?” he fans the final three house advertisements out in his hand.

Dan shrugs, not overly caring either way, and follows Phil back out of the room and back up to their hotel room, they still have a few hours before checkout.

\--

“Dan, wake up.” Phil speaks gently as he softly pokes Dan in the chest again.

Dan’s eyes shoot open, and he's greeted with Phil’s smiling face.

He'd somehow fallen asleep on Phil’s lap.

Immediately, he bolts upright and begins apologising profusely, all the time whilst Phil bites back his laughter.

“You don’t need to apologise,” he shrugs, “But I just thought I’d wake you because we have to check out in just over half an hour.”

“What about the houses?”

Phil chuckles. “We decided, remember?” he reaches to grab a piece of paper from the bedside table and hands it over, the picture of the house circled multiple times and ‘the one!’ written beside it. It's in his own handwriting. He really doesn’t remember a thing, the wedding has still drained him of any and all energy, clearly.

“Fair enough,” he rubs his hands over his eyes, “I’m sorry I fell asleep again.”

“You tend to do that a lot.” Phil says, amusement evident in his tone.

“Sleep or apologise?”

“Both.” Phil grins. Dan can’t help but return it, Phil’s smile is infectious.

“I think it’s endearing, though,” he compliments, and Dan feels his eyes widen slightly.

“Endearing?”

“I can’t explain it, it’s just fun and quirky to me.”

“So is your real laugh,” Dan hears himself blurt out, taking both him and Phil by surprise.

“My real laugh?” Phil repeats, and Dan nods. He's blurted out the truth and now he has to roll with it.

Phil raises an eyebrow.

“You’ve known me for a day, Dan.”

“And I already have witnessed your real laugh alongside the laugh you wish was your real laugh. Goes to show you can already be yourself around me, huh?”

He has no idea where the sudden bout of confidence comes from, but it's another thing he's rolling with.

“And you’ve already fallen asleep in my lap, possibly the same thing applies?” Phil ponders, and Dan already knows he's blushing.

A silence then falls over them, but it isn’t at all heavy and awkward like the one back in the room with the camera. It's light and pleasant, just the two of them staring at one another, shared smiles.

It can easily be a trick of the natural light as the sun slips behind a particularly dense cloud, but Dan swears Phil leans in a little bit further, and he'd be lying if he lets himself believe he doesn’t feel himself doing the same thing.

He watches as Phil’s eyes drop from Dan’s own, then down to his lips, and back up again, and he feels his breathing quicken.

He dares to drop his own gaze down to Phil’s lips, which look smooth as honey and just as enticing.

Thoughts he's sure he shouldn’t be having.

So he stops himself.

“We should talk to the producers about the house…” he speaks in a low whisper, his voice notably raspier than before. He pushes the realisation aside.

For a second, he's almost certain he sees some form of emotion flash across Phil’s face, but it's too quick to be sure and far too quick to decipher.

“Yeah… we should.” Phil replies, his own voice lower in tone.

It isn’t the only talk Dan wants to have.


	5. Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're welcome in advance for what you're about to read.

The following morning, after a lengthy meeting with the producers, Dan and Phil are driven back to Dan’s flat (he lived closer to the new house) with the promise that they’ll be able to move in a couple of days.

They're told to begin packing immediately.

Dan is making them both a drink whilst Phil is on the phone in the other room relaying the information to his family and friends, and politely asking if they wouldn’t mind beginning to pack up his flat for him.

“I’m making coffee for my husband,” Dan says to himself, and can't help but laugh. The whole thing is still utterly bizarre.

Phil is already sat back on the sofa by the time he finishes with the drinks. Dan places the mugs on the coffee table and sits beside Phil, wincing slightly at how firm his sofa cushions are. The thing is ancient, he won’t miss it.

“I never got to compliment you on how nice your flat is,” Phil says as he reaches for his mug and cradles it in his hands.

Dan scoffs. “It’s a shithole, Phil.”

“You’re not going to miss it?”

Dan raises an eyebrow. “Will I miss the peeling walls and cracked kitchen tiles? Safe to say the answer is no.” He smiles.

“How long have you lived here?” Phil asks whilst darting his glance around the room. Dan suddenly feels extremely exposed.

“A year and a half, pretty much. I’d been saving up to one day move out, but, you know, that doesn’t really matter now.”

“Like all your Christmases come early, right?” Phil asks rhetorically.

“What’s your place like?”

“Worse than yours, that’s for sure. This whole thing is a blessing to me, to be quite honest.”

“Why didn’t you move out?”

Phil remains silent for a few seconds, then shrugs. “Sometimes it’s hard to let go of memories.”

Dan simply nods.

“Do you have many memories here?” Phil breaks the silence that hangs over them.

“Oh, tons. Very few of them good.” he snaps. It's instinctive.

Sensing that the conversation can only get worse, Dan excuses himself and wanders into his bedroom to retrieve a couple of the moving boxes the network has provided and starts packing some of his belongings away. He feels as if his life is finally moving forward after being stationary for so long, enduring failed relationship after failed relationship, he's now _married,_ for fuck's sake.

Even if he hasn’t left on the best of terms with his husband.

As he packs, he goes over possible ways he can rekindle conversation with Phil, as well as deciding how best to word his apology at always leaving things at the most awkward and inconvenient moments. A soft knock interrupts his thoughts, and almost sends a family heirloom tumbling out of his hands.

Phil enters with his head dipped.

“Everything okay?” Dan asks, not entirely sure how he should go about his apology.

“Yeah, I just wanted to apologise.” Phil replies, voice small.

Dan honestly doesn’t know how Phil can be real. Humans like Phil can’t exist, surely.

“It’s me that should apologise, don’t be stupid,” he says, placing the box on his bed.

“I shouldn’t have asked what I did, I know it might have been a sensitive topic.”

Dan feels a pain in his chest at seeing Phil so genuinely repentant at something he isn’t at fault for.

“Come here,” Dan opens his arms wide, and Phil snaps his head up, but immediately walks into Dan’s embrace, and wraps his arms around Dan’s torso.

It's the closest contact they’ve had since Phil carried Dan to bed in the hotel suite.

“I’m just a bit touchy about stuff in the past. I’m working on it, I swear.” Dan says softly as he tightens the hug slightly.

“Don’t change on my account. We’re still getting to know each other, after all.”

Dan, always having had the problem of voicing his thoughts at the most inconvenient moments, speaks again.

“I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to making new memories, with you.”

He freezes as he hears himself speak, and a few tense seconds of silence follow.

Dan lets out a sigh of relief when Phil hugs him tightly once more then pulls away, a wide smile on his face.

“I am too. Need help packing?”

\---

The evening rolls around, and Dan is rifling through his freezer looking for something in date. He hadn’t stocked up on food prior to the wedding, he had no idea how long he’d be away for.

“How’s the food scavenge?” Phil calls from the living room, where he's happily scrolling through his networks on Dan’s laptop.

“Do you fancy going food shopping?”

“I’ll get my shoes on!”

Dan smiles, the atmosphere between them now is so much clearer and fun, he's loving it. He can’t help but smile even wider when Phil steps into the kitchen bundled up as if he's heading to the Arctic.

“The shop is only two streets away, you dork,” he laughs, and Phil pouts.

“Don’t laugh, I won’t get ill this way!” he insists, and Dan rolls his eyes playfully, and steps forward to ruffle Phil’s hair.

“Okay buddy, whatever you say,” he teases as he makes his way to the hallway to get his own coat and shoes.

“You’re not going out like that.” Phil states when Dan returns, only in a thin jacket.

“Well pardon me, mother,” Dan retorts, and Phil punches him in the shoulder gently.

“I’m serious. Go put a proper coat on, you’ll catch your death outside!”

“Phil I’ve lived here for nearly a year and a half, I think I know what I’m doing.”

“You know who knows better? Google.” Phil wiggles his phone in front of Dan’s face, displaying the weather app. “Go change.”

Dan sighs dramatically. “Fine. Whatever you say, dear.”

As soon as his back is turned to Phil, he can’t fight a smile. He's far too happy that Phil cares so much, but he'll never say so.

“Is this better?” he asks as he returns the second time, zipping up his designated ‘winter coat’.

“Much. Now we can go.” Phil smiles.

\--

“You realise that we forgot to get anything for breakfast, so we’re just going to have to go back in the morning?” Dan laughs as they turn the corner back to the flat building.

The trip to the shop had been successful, they'd gotten frozen pizzas for dinner, various chocolates for dessert and a bottle of wine to share, though it completely slipped both of their minds to pick anything up for breakfast. They were far too preoccupied with people watching in the shop and Dan laughing hysterically whilst an elderly woman not-so-subtly flirted with Phil.

“Suits me fine, I’m not the one that can’t wake up in the morning.” Phil nudges Dan’s arm.

“Don’t push your luck by biting the hand that feeds you, Lester.”

“Actually I think you’ll find it’s Howell-Lester,” Phil corrects, and Dan feels his stomach flip. He likes it. He especially likes it when Phil says it. It's official and legal now, too, they’d signed all the appropriate papers off-camera.

“My deepest apologies, good sir.” Dan bows to further his sarcasm, and Phil bursts into laughter.

“And you call me a dork.” He tuts.

“You married me,” Dan shrugs.

He wonders when they’d gotten to the place that they can talk about the marriage so freely and jokingly, but he isn’t complaining. They’d spent pretty much the whole day laughing and joking. Things seemed to be on the up.

\--

“Okay let’s play a game!” Phil says upon his return from clearing the dishes. They've had a binge watch of one of Phil’s favourite shows (that Dan had never seen) whilst they ate, pleasant conversation in between the episode changes. Dan has a feeling Phil is going to get him into a lot of new shows and movies, and he can’t wait.

“Slightly ominous but what kind of game?” Dan asks in amusement, closing his laptop.

“Two truths and a lie. It’ll be fun!”

“I don’t feel the need to ask the rules, I think I get it. But okay, you go first.”

“Okay!” Phil seems all too excited. He takes a sip of wine as he contemplates his truths and lie. Dan waits patiently, and prepares to study Phil closely to see if his facial expressions give away which is the lie.

“One,” he holds up a finger, “I was bitten by a squirrel whilst on holiday once.”

Dan almost chokes on his wine as he cracks up into hysteric laughter. “A squirrel?” he asks breathlessly.

Phil narrows his eyes. “They’re vicious beings, I’m telling you!” he flicks Dan on the forehead when he won’t stop laughing.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve just been imagining it and it’s absolutely fucking hilarious,” Dan is on the comedown from his laughter. “Please carry on.”

“You’re horrible. But the second thing,” he holds up a second finger, “One time I went to a shop to get sauce but the shop didn’t have any, and I felt too awkward to leave without buying anything so I bought a Kinder egg.”

“You’re a literal child.” Dan smirks, and Phil pouts.

Dan notices he does that a lot. Not that he's complaining.

“The shopkeepers glare at you! I couldn’t have spent ten minutes in there searching for sauce only to find they have no sauce then walk out without buying anything, it’d look dodgy!”

“I get that but… a Kinder egg of all things?” Dan is biting back the second bout of hysterical laughter.

“It was the cheapest thing I could find, okay!” Phil defends.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, you actual man child. And the third thing?”

Phil clasps his hands together and rested them in his lap. “The third one is really quite embarrassing, to tell you the truth.”

Dan is intrigued.

“There may be a drunk video of me from a year or so ago singing Little Mix’s Black Magic in a karaoke contest my friends dragged me to.”

“Two questions, first did you attempt to hit Perrie’s high note near the end and secondly can you please show me this video because I need it in my life.”

“Unfortunately I did, it’s painful to hear, and secondly no way in hell. My friend posted it online so I don’t even have control over it.”

“You have no idea how much I want all three of these to be true, holy fuck.” Dan laughs and rubs his hands over his face.

Phil shrugs. “One of them is sadly fake.”

“Well, you’re special enough to be bitten by a squirrel, I can imagine you being too awkward to leave a shop without buying anything, but I do think you’re being too specific on the Little Mix karaoke one. That’s the lie, isn’t it?”

Phil throws his arms up in the air. “How did you even guess that! My acting was flawless!” he crosses his arms across his chest.

“Looks like I know you better than you thought,” Dan states smugly. “I knew you wouldn’t be ballsy enough to do karaoke, mister cool and reserved.”

Phil holds up a finger to silence him. “Alas, you are wrong. There is in fact a video of me singing drunk, that I have stored on my computer, but it wasn’t to Little Mix. I only bent the truth a little bit!”

“Which song?”

“Britney Spears’ Toxic.”

Dan places his wine glass on the table and claps his hands together. “Please for the love of everything in the world let me see that video, please please please.”

Phil shakes his head. “No way.”

“I’ll pay you!”

“I’m getting a house bought for me by a mainstream television network, what could I possibly want money for right now?”

Dan scowls at him, but he soon breaks down into laughter again at imagining Phil both being bitten by a squirrel and singing Toxic whilst drunk.

“I’ll see that video one day, you can’t hide it from me forever!”

“But I can try to, that’s what matters.”

“You’re the worst kind of person.”

Phil nods, and takes a sip of wine, hiding his smirk behind the rim of his glass. “Your turn.”

Dan thinks carefully about what to say, what interesting points he can put forward. He gets his three points quicker than Phil did.

“Okay. First one,” he holds up a finger, “I have a scar on my elbow from an allergic reaction I had to a smiley face stamp in school.”

“People can have allergic reactions to those?” Phil asks, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“People can have allergic reactions to anything, mister genius university graduate.”

Ebony and Nick had made sure to tell Dan everything they found out about Phil, it came out that he's a university graduate. Nick joked that Phil was having to settle for a dropout.

Phil holds his hands up in surrender, though an amused smile remains on his lips.

“Secondly,” he holds up a second finger, “I went through a regrettable stage in my life where I seriously considered getting a llama tattoo.”

“Now this one I know could easily be true! Ebony told me all about your weird llama phase when we danced together at the wedding, I can totally believe you considering going that far!”

Dan knows Ebony had been telling Phil all manner of things too, only now he had proof. She's going to get a strongly worded phone call in the morning.

“That traitor,” Dan mumbles, and Phil laughs.

“She also told me how you used to sing the llama song at all hours of the day.”

“Now she can’t prove that!” Dan whines, feeling heat rush to his cheeks in embarrassment.

“She has video evidence.”

“I don’t remember that ever happening…”

“You were drunk.” Phil is having far too much fun with the conversation, whilst Dan feels as if he is slowly dying inside.

“Ebony and I are going to have words.”

Phil places his glass on the coffee table and repositions himself on the sofa. “Anyway, your third thing?”

“Right. My third point.” Dan feels his throat run dry.

“Third,” he holds up a third finger and gulps, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so who saw that coming??? it was inevitable but like... it finally happened (nearly).


	6. Six.

“What?” Phil's eyes are wide.

“Those are your three,” Dan replies, voice surprisingly calm and steady. “Find the lie.”

A silence falls over them, and Dan feels his fingers twitch, he isn’t sure what for. He ponders some possibilities for a while, whilst he waits for Phil to speak.

He isn’t expecting Phil to sigh. “The third one. The third one is a lie.”

“You think I’d get a fucking llama tattoo? Seriously?” Dan laughs, and Phil snaps his head up. “Yes, that means what you think it means, Romeo,” he whispers, just to spell it out as clear as he can. He has no idea how Phil will take it, he only has hopes. The alcohol is definitely helping him along.

Phil wastes no time. He leans forward and presses their lips together, but it's over far too quickly for Dan’s liking. He can tell Phil is still slightly hesitant for some reason. Someone has to take control, and Dan is more than willing to take on the role. Phil hasn’t fully pulled away, which is a promising sign, and Dan casts all his thoughts aside as he grabs Phil’s shirt and pulls him close again, initiating a deeper kiss. It's reciprocated in what felt like less than a second.

It's been far too long since he was part of a heavy makeout session, and _fuck_ he’s missed it. It's one of his favourite aspects of a relationship – or a ‘temporary’ relationship. Either had worked for him for the majority of his past. He knows he's a good kisser, and he's always oh so happy to demonstrate it.

When Phil moans softly against his lips, Dan is assured that he hasn’t lost his touch. It only spurs him on.

As their bodies press closer together, Dan slides a hand under Phil’s shirt and sets to work roaming around the skin on his chest, and Phil moans again. Dan kisses him harder, the sound soon lost to the night air.

He soon loses track of time. He doesn’t know – or, more importantly, doesn’t care – what had happened, but he's loving and savouring every second. If marriage involved this every day, signing up for the show was the best decision he’d ever made.

When Phil abruptly pulls away, biting his lip and avoiding eye contact, everything seemed to crumble.

“We should stop.” he says quietly, his gaze down at his lap.

“Or we could, you know, not stop.”

“Dan don’t make this any harder.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

Phil stands up from the sofa without speaking another word, taking Dan’s gaze with him.

“I’m sorry” his voice is still small. He turns and heads into the spare bedroom (which Dan had been using for storage), locking the door behind him.

Dan brings his knees up to his chest, his lips and skin still tingling from Phil’s touch, and reaches for his glass. A single tear falls into the wine, and he downs the remaining alcohol in one swift gulp, and wills himself not to cry, and tries his hardest to ignore the feeling of abandonment pooling in the pit of his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed the chapter, friends!


	7. Seven.

Dan doesn’t sleep a wink.

He gives up on trying to sleep after only a couple of hours and relocates back to the sofa to drown his mortification and apparent insomnia in old sitcom reruns and cheap hot chocolate.

Phil comes out of his room at around seven, which at least confirms that he's an early riser.

“Morning,” he says, and Dan tightens his grip around his mug.

“… Yep.”

Phil sighs and pads into the kitchen. Dan waits until his footsteps sound distant enough and lets out the breath he was holding. He feels colour rush to his cheeks, he isn’t in any kind of mood to tackle the conversation he knows is on the horizon.

“We need to talk about last night.” Phil says decisively as he sits beside Dan, and Dan immediately gets to his feet and heads for his room.

“Great, you talk about it and I’ll just be in here. Alone. Again.”

He doesn’t mean to be such an ass. He’s just never been so brutally rejected before and his first instinct is hostility. He hasn’t been so embarrassed since he sent a submission in for a show that aimed to marry him off to a complete stranger. Funny how his most mortifying moments now all seem to involve Phil.

He sits on his bed, twiddling his thumbs in his lap as he contemplates his next move. His breath catches in his throat when there's a knock on the door.

“Dan, you can’t stay in there forever…” Phil sounds almost sadder than before.

“Fucking watch me.” Dan snaps back, and instantly punches himself in the leg, Phil doesn’t deserve that. He obviously had some sort of reason for doing what he did and Dan knows he should respect that. He _does_ respect that _,_ of course he does, his pride just won’t let him say so.

“We don’t have anything for breakfast…” Phil tries again, and his words cause Dan’s stomach to rumble, betraying his petty protest completely.

Knowing better than to go against his body’s needs (again), he begrudgingly gets dressed and slips back into the living room, trying his best to go under Phil’s radar. Which, in his tiny flat, is impossible.

“There you are,” Phil smiles weakly, “Ready to go?”

Dan merely nods and picks his keys up and follows Phil out.

Not another word is spoken on the way to the shop. Dan hates it, it's all his fault. He lets himself lose control and is holding Phil responsible for his bruised ego when it's all playground drama. He wants to break the ice somehow, but the metaphorical ice seems impenetrable and the tension hangs over them like an ever-present storm cloud ready to break loose any second.

They head to separate aisles. Phil heads to the cereal aisle and Dan wanders idly towards the bakery section in pursuit of some form of croissant or breakfast pastry. They're either too early or too late, as the pickings are slim. In the end he picks up a few random pieces of fruit and throws them in the basket. He can always just share whatever cereal Phil picks out.

He swallows his pride and dawdles over to the cereal aisle in pursuit of Phil, picking up some milk on the way. He finds Phil looking over the selection of cereals with childlike excitement in his eyes. His eyes light up when his gaze settles on the one he was looking for.

As if Dan didn’t find him attractive enough already. If things had gone to plan and it would be appropriate and acceptable for him to drop everything and just kiss Phil senseless, he would. A million times over. There's no point lying to himself anymore. He's beyond attracted.

It feels like a punch to the gut when Phil’s eyes cloud over slightly and his smile falls when he notices Dan.

“Oh, hi,” he smiles weakly again, “I thought I’d just get this considering Ebony told me you like it too. I thought we could share.”

Dan wonders if there's anything Ebony hasn’t told Phil about him.

“That sounds nice, yeah.” Dan replies, and holds out the basket.

They walk in silence to the checkout.

Dan watches as the cashier looks down at his wedding ring as he hands over the money.

Her gaze flicks between the two men and she smiles warmly.

“Newlyweds?” she asks knowingly, and Dan nods quickly. He has no idea how Phil reacts.

“I could tell,” she grins and presses a finger to her temple. “I’m just kidding. The bags under your hubby’s eyes are a dead giveaway. When I finally got my girl we didn’t sleep for days either, literally couldn’t get enough of each other. Good for you boys!”

Dan feels his stomach drop.

“Thank you.” he forces a smile as he takes his change and the bag of shopping and they head for the exit.

But not before the universe decides to throw yet another spanner in the works.

“Dan?” the voice sends a shiver down his spine.

“Keep walking,” he whispers harshly to Phil, and quickens his pace.

“Hey, Dan! Dan Howell!”

It sounds weird to just be referred to as Howell. It’s only been days but it's a dramatic life change Dan has adapted to shockingly quickly. He's near certain that he prefers Howell-Lester. Whether Phil feels the same is a different story.

Dan grits his teeth and spins around, another forced smile plastered on his lips.

“Casey Doebridge,” he greets and moves into her one-arm embrace.

“Actually, it’s Casey Litton now.” She corrects him chirpily, and holds up her hand to show off her flashy, evidently luxuriously expensive wedding ring.

Dan slips his own ringed hand into his coat pocket. He knows Phil is somewhere behind him.

“Tommy finally popped the question?” he asks rhetorically, and she nods happily, he digs his fingernails into his palm. “Congratulations, I’m happy for you both.”

“Thank you,” she smiles, then takes a step to the side to presumably take a look at Phil. “And who’s this?”

Dan is expecting Phil to reply on his own behalf, but he remains silent. So Dan steps in before things turn sour.

“This is Phil,” he nods in the general direction behind him, “My...”

_Husband. Husband. Husband._

“… My Phil.”

He digs his fingernails in deeper. He winces when he's sure he's drawn blood.

“Your Phil?” Casey repeats, and Dan nods, wanting nothing more than to redo the entire conversation. “That’s nice.” She pulls Dan in for another hug.

“Listen I need to get back because Tommy has a gig tonight but let’s catch up sometime soon, okay?” Dan knows she doesn’t mean it, Casey never chases after anyone for plans. He knows that all too well.

“Of course” he humours her.

She waves goodbye and heads back in the opposite direction and Dan carries on back towards the flat, silently passing Phil as he does so.

Not another word is spoken on the way back, either.

\--

“So who was that?” Phil asks quietly once they're back in the flat.

“Do you actually care?” Another tone of voice Phil doesn’t deserve.

“Of course I care, Dan,” Phil stops what he's doing, “I care about everything in your life.”

Dan blushes furiously, and turns away, pretending to busy himself with gathering bowls for the cereal.

“Just a girl I went to school with, that’s all.”

“But you told me to keep-“

“Sense the tone, Phil.”

Phil opens his mouth to reply again, but closes it. Dan feels his stomach turn, and it isn’t because of his hunger.

They eat in silence.

Dan internally scolds himself once more.

He then notices what the cashier was referring to. It looks like Phil hasn’t slept in days, there are huge dark bags under his eyes. Dan prays to a higher power he doesn’t even believe in that he isn’t the reason why.

\--

“Can I ask a question?” Phil almost sounds nervous.

They're filling in various forms for some part of the show they're not sure of, and some last minute forms for the house before they move in.

“Sure.” Dan knows he can’t have sounded more dismissive and uninterested, though it's the furthest away from his intention. He's quite thrilled that Phil is trying to make conversation again.

“Why didn’t you tell Casey that we were married?”

And there it is. The question that made Dan feel as if an entire army’s worth of weapons are lodged deeply into his heart.

He wants to. He wants to tell everyone who'll listen. He doesn’t know how to articulate that, though.

He takes too long to reply.

“Are you embarrassed of me?” Phil asks bluntly, his eyes glassy.

Dan is speechless. The very idea that Phil could think such a thing makes him want to bawl like a baby. Phil is so out of his league it's ridiculous, yet here he is thinking Dan is ashamed of him?

If it was acceptable to do so, Dan would walk over and kiss him senseless, whilst also kissing sense into him. He knows it makes no sense, but neither does his sudden extreme turn of feelings towards Phil compared to how he was even the day before.

“No, Phil.”

“Oh.” Phil pauses for a second, and taps his pen against the table. “I just thought you might be because you didn’t seem too willing to say that I was your husband…”

“What the fuck was I supposed to say, Phil? Oh yeah Casey, this is my husband, he won’t even fucking _kiss me._ We’re obviously still in the honeymoon phase, can you fucking tell?” Dan snaps, and throws his pen down on the table and storms into his room. He heads straight for his bed and dives under the duvet and begins sobbing into his pillow. Again. He scolds himself again for swearing so much in the space of ten seconds.

He isn’t angry, though he definitely just made Phil think he is. He's mortified and upset. Mortified he's made such an idiot out of himself when Phil clearly isn’t interested. Upset that he’d read Phil’s signals all wrong and that he’s probably wrecked whatever chance they had at a happy marriage.

Upset that Phil got stuck with such a shitty ‘soulmate’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not even going to lie i really like this chapter i think i did well
> 
> please let me know what you thought and share the fic and all that good stuff


	8. Eight.

His phone wakes him up. He has no idea how long he’s slept for, but his eyes are sore.

“Hello?” he answers the call without checking the caller ID, not many people call him anyway.

“You’re awake!” Terry’s friendly voice replies, and Dan sighs in relief, he’s missed Terry. “Anyway kid, is it alright if we come to get some footage in like an hour?”

“Um, sure…” he isn’t sure if being filmed in his current state would make the viewers believe they were living a happy marriage.

“You don’t sound too sure there, everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, just… see you in an hour.”

Then he hangs up before Terry can question him further.

Now he just has to face Phil.

\--

They're being filmed in two different rooms.

Phil makes up some bullshit about wanting to do it because that way they won’t influence one another’s answers, but the real reason why is – at least to Dan – beyond obvious. They don’t say a word whilst they get their makeup done.

“Are you excited to move in with Phil?” Terry prompts Dan’s first answer and gives a thumbs up from behind the camera.

Dan plays with his fingers and twists the ring around.

“Is it not everyone’s dream to live with their soulmate forever?” he answers with a shrug and a (slightly forced) smile.

Terry smiles. “And how’s married life treating you so far?”

Dan stops himself from sighing and swallows thickly. “It’s, you know… a little unconventional, we’re still trying to get to grips with one another.”

“Are you having trouble with that?”

“Only as one would expect.”

Dan has always been good with his words, he’d been told he had a silver tongue on more than one occasion.

Terry changes the subject. “Do you think you’re falling in love?”

Dan makes eye contact with Terry rather than the camera lens. He needs an actual person’s opinion.

“Is it possible to fall in love with a complete stranger?” he feels exposed and oh so vulnerable.

Terry senses something is wrong, and places his hand over the lens.

“Dan, everyone is a stranger to one another at first. It’s a two person effort to get past that stage.”

And that’s all he needs to hear before he starts to cry. Terry immediately switches off the camera and runs over to pull him into a hug.

He cries for many reasons. Phil had been trying to get to know him pretty much since they left the altar, and Dan has just pushed him away at every opportunity. Phil is now mad at him, and it's all Dan’s fault. He had just admitted his feelings to himself and now he’s wrecked everything. He tried to move too fast and got rejected. He's scared to even talk to his husband. He isn’t worthy of Phil.

Phil is stuck with him forever.

“It’ll all work out, Dan. Remember that you’re perfectly suited to one another. There’s nothing you shouldn’t be able to overcome together.”

Dan cries harder.

\--

“I’m sorry.”

He's been building up the courage for over an hour. Phil is finishing packing some boxes in the other room, and Dan has been saying the same two words over and over in the mirror.

“What?” Phil doesn’t look up from what he's doing.

“I’m sorry for being unbearable lately.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Dan sighs. “You don’t have to be so modest. I know how I’ve been acting to you. I’ve been like a kid throwing a tantrum.”

Phil puts down the box and turns to face him. _There are the eyes Dan’s been missing._

“Yeah, you have.” He shrugs, and Dan feels a pain in his chest. “But it’s good that you’ve admitted to it, I forgive you so that means we can move on from whatever this hell has been.”

Phil holds out his arms, and Dan takes a deep breath.

“Come on. Bring it in, hubby.”

And so Dan does. He hugs Phil tightly and Phil hugs him tightly in return, and when they pull apart it feels as if the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders.

“I really am sorry, you know…”

Phil holds up a hand. “You can stop saying that now, we’re over it. Now help me finish packing and then we can have the night to ourselves, yeah?”

Dan nods and moves over to finish packing another box.

He feels the need to keep conversation rolling.

“So, um, what kind of questions were you asked?”

“I assume the same ones as you? Though I’m pretty sure he snuck one in that he was just wondering himself.”

“And what was that?” Dan asks as he tapes up the box and moves onto another.

“He asked if I was falling in love with you.”

It all seems a little familiar, Dan thinks.

“Oh,” he replies and lets out a shaky exhale of breath. “And-And what did you say?”

Phil pauses for a moment, and taps his fingers against the box for a couple of seconds. Dan finds himself holding his breath, waiting for the answer.

“I said I think I could be,” Phil admits, and Dan feels himself swoon in the most cliché of ways, “I just don’t know enough about you.” And then he crashes back down to earth.

“Do you want to change that?”

Phil lifts his head to make eye contact. “I’d like that.”

“So shoot, ask me anything.”

Phil bites his lip for a couple of seconds. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an editor. Yourself?”

“That sounds so cool! I’m a freelance video editor, not as cool.”

“I beg to differ! Have you edited anything I might’ve seen?”

Phil laughs, and Dan feels more at ease than he has over the past couple of days. “You’re getting far too excited. I don’t edit, like, blockbusters. Mostly little indie films or random projects people make, but it pays well.”

“Better than correcting a million and one spelling and grammar errors, I get sick of the sound of my own keyboard clicking after ten minutes and my highlight feature dies from exhaustion! But, like you, it does pay well.”

Phil laughs again.

“Seems like we’re as bad as each other! But at least we’ll both be at home all the time, I assume you’re on a lot of skype meetings too?”

“You got it. Probably another reason why they paired us together, we won’t get lonely whilst the other would be out at work.”

“Did you really struggle with the application form? The online one? It’s positively shocking that they didn’t have video editor in the careers drop down box.”

“I did! I ended up just putting the publishing industry, I didn’t know what else to put it as, it’s sad the show doesn’t cater to us folk who sit on our laptops all day.”

“I just put mine as the media industry for the same reason, it’s highly discouraging.”

They share another laugh before continuing to pack in silence for a while.

“Why did you apply for the show, if you don’t mind me asking?” The words leave Dan’s mouth before he can stop himself. It's been playing on his mind for a while.

“It’s fine. The main reason is because I’m thirty now, and I just want to settle down, start a proper life, you know? And I just have the worst luck when it comes to that.”

“I relate to that,” Dan presses his lips together, “I’m twenty-five by the way, nearly twenty-six. But if it’s any consolation, I’m really glad you applied.”

Phil smiles at him and Dan is sure he can feel himself melting.

“I am too.”

Another example of when Dan would kiss him senseless if it was at all appropriate.

But instead, he keeps the conversation going. He wants to know everything there is to know about Phil.

\--

By the time darkness falls, they had finished packing entirely, ready to move the next day, and they're in fits of laughter after having exchanged various anecdotes.

In such a short time, Dan feels as if he knows so much more about Phil, and would without a doubt class him as a close friend as well as a literal husband.

“I’m glad I apologised, I didn’t want us moving to kick off with us still in a bad place.”

Phil smiles. “I’m glad too, but I figured you needed space so I just let you do your thing. I hope you’re okay now, though?”

“I’m great now, you dork.” He bumps shoulders with him. “But know that I’m definitely not ashamed of you, at all.”

He watches as colour rushes to Phil’s cheeks. “Thanks.”

“We should get some sleep, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow,” Dan says through a yawn, and a second later Phil yawns too.

“True. Can you believe we’re having a house bought for us?” Phil asks as they stand up from the sofa.

“No. I can’t believe any of this is happening, to be honest.”

He secretly hopes Phil understands what he is really referring to. If he does, he doesn’t let on.

“It’s crazy,” he holds out his arms again. “Goodnight hug?”

“You’re so lame.” Dan rolls his eyes playfully but happily hugs him anyway.

Though they're heading to different rooms and though it isn’t the way he would prefer to say goodnight, he's just satisfied that they're on good terms again.

If they take this marriage in baby steps, they just might make it work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> please leave a kudos and comment, and share the fic around if you did :)
> 
> thank you for your continued support!


	9. Nine.

“And here are the keys to your brand new house!” the over-enthusiastic estate agent drops the keys into Phil’s palm and tries her hardest not to look directly into the camera lens that is behind Dan and Phil. “Do you have any questions?”

The two turn to look at each other for a moment, then back to the estate agent. “Just one,” Dan says, “Is this actually happening?”

Phil nods in disbelief, and both their gazes drop to the keys.

“It certainly is!” she replies chirpily. She moves her hand to Dan’s arm. “Congratulations, you two.”

“Thank you” they reply in unison, and Dan can’t stop himself from looking around, this is his house now. His house that he is probably going to live in for the rest of his life with his husband. He's married. With a house. He never thought he’d be able to say that.

The estate agent leaves, and Terry coughs subtly from behind the camera to draw Dan’s attention back to reality and promptly out of his daydream.

“How are you feeling?” he asks with a wide smile. He seems genuinely happy for them.

“I’m expecting you to take the keys from us as soon as the cameras stop rolling, if I’m honest” Dan replies with a laugh, and runs a hand through his hair. He still can’t believe the drastic turn his life has taken.

“What about you, Phil?”

“I literally don’t even have words,” Phil wraps his fingers around the keys, “I feel like I’m going to wake up any second!”

Dan nods, feeling the exact same way.

The movers then come in, dropping off the last of Dan and Phil’s possessions, they have now officially left their old flats behind and are starting a new chapter in their lives together. More than a bit daunting, but Dan would be lying if he said he felt any emotion stronger than he felt excitement.

“Congratulations, lads” one of the movers smiles as he leaves, the other smiles at them too.

Now it's just Dan, Phil and the cameras.

“So if it’s okay with you, we’ll get some shots of you moving boxes and unpacking a bit of stuff, we’ll make it into a montage type thing in the final edit” Phil’s cameraman explains (Dan still doesn’t know his name) and they both nod.

\--

The filming seems to drag on longer than ever. All Dan wants to do is get as settled as he can as quick as he can, but he and Phil have to redo the same walking sequence a million times so the right shot can be filmed, and the same box is repacked and unpacked at least sixteen times. As much as Dan loves and respects him, he can’t think of a time he's been happier to see Terry wave goodbye.

“I think my eyes are inside out and my stomach is eating itself.” Phil announces as they both collapse onto the sofa, exhausted by the day’s events.

“Now there’s some beautiful imagery.”

Phil punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Fight me.”

“Like the way you fought that boy in year seven, and lost miserably?”

Phil sighs. “I regret telling you about my life.”

“I know you better than you know yourself.”

“You wish, Danny boy.” Phil ruffles Dan’s hair.

“But I am getting there, am I not?” It's a slightly hopeful rhetorical statement.

“A sad fact” Phil sighs again, for dramatic effect this time. He was grinning.

\--

“Is it too late to cancel on tonight? I’m so tired” Phil says half-heartedly as he buries his head into a cushion.

“Considering our friends are about two minutes away? I think so. Get up, hotshot, we’ve got to be somewhat sociable and entertaining for at least a couple of hours.”

Phil groans but lifts his head anyway.

They have unpacked the majority of the living room and kitchen, and shoved the rest of the boxes into the bedrooms out of view. They've done a pretty good job, if Dan did say so himself. The house is infinitely more impressive than his flat and they’ve only lived there for a matter of hours.

“Listen before everyone arrives and we have a little rest time I kind of wanted to talk about something-“ Phil is cut off by incessant knocking on the front door. Though Dan is more than intrigued, he recognises Ebony’s knock anywhere and knows that she won’t give up for even a second.

“When everyone’s gone, yeah? We’ll talk over a drink.” Dan smiles (though he wants to have that discussion right that second) and Phil nods. Though Dan doesn’t miss the way Phil bites his lip. He wonders why.

“Please not alcohol, though. I have a feeling we’ll have enough tonight to last us a millennium.” Phil is back to his cheery (albeit tired) self.

“Of course not alcohol, doof. You can’t beat a hot chocolate at two in the morning, trust me I’ve had enough experience to accurately confirm that.”

“Wow, we’re getting old,” Phil jokes.

“Looks like you already beat me to it, old man” Dan replies, a smirk on his lips as Phil sticks out his bottom lip.

“Dan!” Phil exclaims, and reaches out to grab Dan’s wrist, but Dan jumps out of his grasp at the last millisecond.

“We’ve got guests to entertain, dude, get your ass up.”

Phil pouts and begrudgingly gets up from the sofa.

“Asshole,” he says. The word is empty.

“You wouldn’t want me any other way though, right?” Dan nudges his shoulder before he heads towards the door.

He knows Phil says something, but it's out of earshot.

\--

 _“Finally,”_ Ebony says as Dan opened the door, her knuckle still poised ready to pound on the wood again.

“Yeah what the fuck took you two so long, were you making out or something in there?” Nick asks, a smirk growing on his lips when he notices how red-faced his question makes Dan.

“I need a drink.” Harvey says from the back of the group, and heads straight for the kitchen once Dan has directed them, though Nick and Ebony hover near the door, clearly wanting to get him alone.

“I’m just going to call my friends, see how far away they are, okay?” Phil politely excuses himself with a smile and heads off into another room.

It doesn’t seem even a second before Nick and Ebony go into full interrogation mode.

“I’ve not heard things for a few days… has a certain marriage been kicked up a notch?” Ebony is straight to the point, and Dan knows his face falls for a moment as he inevitably recalls Phil’s rejection of him.

“So good that you can’t even talk about it, I know the feeling.” Nick grins, and Dan flips him off. Oh how he’d missed them.

“Seriously though, has anything happened?” Ebony asks, evidently more sincere than before.

Dan shakes his head. Though he appreciates that he and Phil have gotten a lot closer and gotten to know each other a lot more, there's still a large part of him that yearns for something more. Ever since he’d admitted his feelings to himself he's more aware of them than ever, and he's sure they're getting stronger and more demanding. It's like the most extreme schoolgirl crush.

“Do you finally admit you _want_ something to happen?” Nick follows up, and when Dan remains silent and diverts his gaze to his shoes, his friends both place a hand on each of his arms.

“Our baby’s finally growing up.” Ebony feigns wiping a tear from her eye, and squeezes his arm lightly.

“It’s about fucking time.” Nick adopts a mock-condescending tone of voice and it makes Dan laugh.

“Have you had the dreaded talk yet?” Ebony whispers (though nobody else is near them).

Dan freezes in place, he wonders if that was what Phil wanted to talk about. Maybe he wants to progress things. Or, more likely an option, Dan is kidding himself again.

\--

It's Phil’s turn to play greeter.

Dan stays by his side as Phil opens the door to his friends, and he lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding as, upon first impressions, none of them look anything less than delightfully pleasant and welcoming. Not that he thought Phil would associate with anyone less than an actual sunshine blessing to the universe (not that Dan was biased at all).

He recognises them all from the wedding, but he never got a chance to speak to any of them.

“I thought this housewarming would never bloody happen!” a blonde woman says chirpily, and pulls Phil into a hug.

“We brought the goods, the party’s truly arrived” a brunette woman holds up a bottle of wine and a bottle of champagne, and a blond guy beside her holds up various bags of party foods.

“I told you we had everything covered, you didn’t have to go through all this trouble!” Phil assures them.

The brunette shrugs. “You know what Lou is like when she gets an idea in her head.”

Phil laughs. “True, there is no escape.”

“I know how to be a good and courteous houseguest, that’s all!” the blonde defends herself, “But aren’t you going to introduce us?” she nods towards Dan, who is frankly caught off-guard by someone acknowledging his existence all of a sudden.

Phil turns to face him and immediately blushes and mouths a quick apology, then turns back to his friends.

“Dan, this is Louise, Dodie and Caspar. Everyone, you know Dan by now. You know, that guy I married and stuff.”

“Thank you for that charming description,” Dan quips, and the guy, Caspar, laughs.

“There should’ve been more of us tonight but life commitments and shit had to be seen to,” Dodie explains, and Louise moves in to pull Dan into a hug. He wasn’t expecting it, but it does put him a lot more at ease.

“It’s so lovely to finally meet you properly!” she grins at him.

“And you," he replies, and smiles at Dodie and Caspar.

“Anyway, you can put the stuff in the kitchen and help yourselves to whatever you find in there” Phil nods in the general direction of the kitchen, and his friends all thank him and begin dawdling off in different directions, leaving Dan and Phil alone near the front door.

“Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse” Dan smiles.

“A lot lot worse, to be fair. The universe must be in debt to us somehow.” Phil ponders.

Dan wagers that, at least from his perspective, it's very much the other way around.

They then fall into silence, and it's only when Dan catches himself staring that he pushes himself off of the wall and runs a hand through his hair. He knows that, as is his luck, Nick and Ebony will have seen him.

“We should probably go and socialise a bit, we’ve only really seen each other and the camera guys for the past few days, I’m surprised you’re not sick of the sight of me by this point.”

Phil chuckles softly. “Only when you smile.”

“You ass.” Dan nudges Phil’s shoulder and Phil laughs again.

“But you’re right, we should go and talk to people considering we invited them here,” he pushes himself off of the wall and begins walking away, but turns and looks back over his shoulder. “But we’ll still have that talk later, right?”

Dan nods, knowing that if he tries to speak, it won’t be what his brain would be telling him to say.

Phil smiles again before turning and heading towards the big group of their friends that has congregated in the middle of the living room.

Dan stays a second or two longer, attempting to compose his thoughts (and push certain thoughts – and desires – firmly out of his mind) before following suit and heading back into the living room with a rehearsed smile on his face, still not knowing what the hell to think about anything.


	10. Ten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think some of you are going to enjoy this chapter a lot
> 
> also, how are you all, i hope you're all good! it's been a wild old week for me, i did my very first escape room with some friends and got out with 21 seconds to spare and it was one of the best experiences of my life, and my girls little mix won their first brit and i got really emotional (if you follow me on twitter or tumblr i'm sure you know all about that, haha)
> 
> anyway, on with the chapter!

The night passes by in a pleasant blur. Everyone has a little too much to drink, effectively meaning Dan and Phil never have the ‘talk’ that Phil apparently wanted so badly. Everyone has stayed the night as nobody is in a fit state to travel anywhere, and the new house isn’t all too close to any of their hometowns.

Dan is out of the house before Phil wakes up the next morning (they sleep in separate rooms still), as he's joining Nick and Ebony for breakfast.

“Before you start, I’m not answering any intimate questions, you had your opportunity last night.” He holds up a hand to silence his friends.

Ebony sighs. “Fine. But you already admitted you fancy the ass off of him which is enough for now.”

Nick shrugs. “I guess. But my head’s fucking pounding, that’s all I know.” 

Both Dan and Ebony nod in agreement.

“We went hard at it,” Ebony laughs, and takes a big sip of her steaming hot coffee. “But it was as a good housewarming party should be.”

Nick clinks his mug to hers.

“Phil’s friends seem nice too, which is a bonus for you. At least you’re not married to an antisocial prick.” Nick then clinks his mug to Dan’s.

“It’s a shame that Phil’s married to one, though,” Ebony sings, and Dan throws a piece of croissant at her.

“If that’s true, what am I doing right now then?” he quips, and Ebony raises an eyebrow.

“We’re taking pity on you, you’re a charity case.”

Dan throws the entire croissant at her. She smiles sweetly and begins picking at it. Dan laughs softly and focuses back on his own plate.

They eat in pleasant silence for a while, but when Dan hears Nick place his cutlery down, he knows a question is on the horizon.

“So do you think you’ll ever get some?”

Dan stifles a laugh and lifts his head to meet his friend’s gaze. As much as he (obviously) hopes so, he isn’t going to give Nick the satisfaction.

“We’re going to be one of those couples that just never has sex.”

Ebony snorts and is sent into a mini choking fit.

“You,” Nick points at him, “You, Daniel Howell, are never going to get laid again.” He clarifies, and Dan shrugs. He's having fun with it.

“Even abstinence doesn’t punish you that far,” Ebony chimes in helpfully, and Nick nods.

“We know.”

“But he’s been dying to get it in since the wedding!” Nick exclaims, and Dan again has to stifle a laugh. Now his feelings are perfectly clear, his friends’ explicit wording no longer has the same effect. He appreciates it now.

“Clearly not.” Dan replies, some element of truth behind the words.

“Give him a fucking chance then, you twat!” Ebony throws a piece of croissant over, as Dan had done earlier. He eats it to spite her.

“You know, sometimes I really doubt why this friendship is still a thing.” Dan gestures between the three of them.

Nick and Ebony both clink their mugs to Dan’s.

“We love you too.”

\--

Dan arrives home a few hours later, having waved Nick and Ebony off in their taxi.

He's undeniably excited at the prospect of going home to Phil.

“I’m home!” he sings as he closes the door behind him, and Phil’s voice echoes through the hall in reply.

He's curled up on the sofa on his laptop doing something or other, his glasses are perched on his nose and he looks adorable. It kind of kills Dan that it isn’t appropriate for him to say so aloud.

“Nice morning?” he asks politely, and Dan nods, sitting in the recliner next to the sofa.

“You?”

It's Phil’s turn to nod. “Yeah, it was really nice. We all kind of got up at the same time so we cooked breakfast here and they left about half an hour ago. They all seem to love you, by the way.”

It's strange that Dan feels a weight being lifted from his shoulders.

“Really?”

“Yeah, Louise and Dodie said we seem a perfect match and Caspar said he admired your tolerance for alcohol.”

“Well, it is my biggest talent, I’ve spent years perfecting it.”

“I didn’t mention the llama tattoo.” Phil grins.

“Oh my god, that was a _lie.”_ Dan groans, though he feels colour rush to his cheeks at realising Phil is referencing their game of two truths one lie. It means he remembers what happened that night, clearly he doesn’t regret the entire night even if he does regret the kiss.

“Whatever you say, bigshot.” Phil is clearly having too much fun with the conversation.

Dan throws a cushion at his head whilst attempting to hide his furious blush.

\--

It's a few hours later and they have both been getting some work done, occasionally helping each other where possible and sharing jokes to keep the mood light and easy.

The day is drawing to a close, and it takes Dan by surprise slightly when Phil closes his laptop all of a sudden and throws it to the end of the sofa and rubs his hands over his face.

“Tough job?” Dan asks with a smirk.

Phil groans and flips him off.

“I think my eyes are falling out of their sockets.”

“You have such a way with words.”

“Well I do have a degree in words, to be fair.”

“Alright don’t rub it in my dropout face, Lester.” Dan pouts and closes his own laptop.

Phil raises an eyebrow. “What did you just call me?”

It takes Dan a couple of seconds to realise what he's getting at. He sighs dramatically.

“Howell-Lester.”

Phil nods. “Good. You’re getting there.”

“Sorry, hubby.” Dan shrugs, and Phil smiles.

“I forgive you, dear.”

Dan wrinkles his nose. “We’re gross.”

Phil laughs.

“We’re getting there.”

\--

“So what is it you wanted to talk about?” Dan finds himself asking a while later.

Phil tenses up for a moment, and Dan almost regrets asking.

“Oh yeah, that. It, um, it doesn’t really matter. It was stupid.”

“Phil it clearly isn’t stupid, you seemed as if you really wanted to talk about it…”

Phil bites his lip.

“I mean, kind of. At the time, I mean. Um, yeah.”

Dan wonders why Phil is tumbling over his words, it's unlike him.

“So go, talk to me about it.” Dan smiles in what he hopes is an encouraging manner.

“It’s not so much a conversation as it is a question, I guess?” Phil has diverted his gaze down to the floor, and Dan is beginning to quietly worry a little bit.

“So ask me?”

Phil bites his lip again and takes a deep breath.

“You’re going to think I’m stupid” he laughs weakly.

Dan presses his lips together and moves to sit beside Phil on the sofa.

“I won’t think you’re stupid. Unless you tell me you want to give the house back, in which case I’ll be forced to question your sanity.”

Phil smiles. “I’m nervous, not losing my mind. At least not in the insane way.”

He then meets Dan’s gaze, and it almost takes Dan's breath away how easily he could get lost in Phil’s eyes, in the sense of staring at them endlessly for hours. He synchronously loves and hates that a million clichés pop into his mind whenever Phil is around him.

Not being able to act on how he feels is slowly tearing him up inside.   

Phil mumbles what seems like an entire speech in one long syllable. 

“I’m sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite hear you."

Phil takes another deep breath.

“I want to ask you out on a date.”

Dan feels his eyes widen, and the flutter is back in his stomach, more intense than ever.

“So ask me…” Sarcasm is all Dan can muster, his mind is in overdrive.

Phil doesn’t even poke fun at him like usual, if anything he just looks more nervous than he did before. Dan doesn’t dare to let his mind ponder why that might be, he's having enough trouble with his feelings as it is.

“Daniel Howell, will you go on a date with me?"  

Dan reaches over and takes Phil’s hand loosely in his own.

“First of all, it’s Daniel Howell- _Lester,_ ” he squeezes Phil’s hand lightly, “But yes. I’d be honoured to go on a date with you, Phil.”

 


	11. Eleven

Phil lets out a sigh (Dan hopes one of relief) and squeezes Dan’s hand.

He then, silently, gets up from the sofa and walks into the hallway, leaving Dan alone and confused as ever.

“Phil?” he calls, but is met with more silence. He presses his lips together and sits back, trying to wrap his mind around the conversation he just had, and if it actually, genuinely happened.

He's about to get up and find his husband when Phil re-enters the room and drops an envelope onto his lap.

“What’s this?” Dan asks, and Phil shrugs, though a smile is toying on his lips.

“One way to find out.”

Dan carefully tears the envelope open, and his breath catches in his throat as he pulls out the contents. He desperately looks up to Phil for clarification.

“How does a first date in Spain sound?” Phil grins as he sits back down, and Dan keeps his gaze firmly on Phil’s.

“Is this our honeymoon?” he knows he sounds choked up. He probably is.

Phil nods happily and takes one of the tickets from Dan’s (shaking) hands.

“Isn’t it cool? I can’t believe we’re going to be living a holiday of luxury!” Phil’s excitement is adorable.

“The network did this?”

Phil shakes his head. “My parents spoke to the producers.”

“Your _parents_ paid for this? Phil I can’t accept this knowing-“ 

Phil rests his hand on top of Dan’s free one.

“They paid for my brother’s honeymoon and they wanted to pay for mine too. I tried to talk them out of it, but they’re traditional people, no talking them out of anything. It’s fine, I promise.”

Dan bites his lip and looks down at the ticket. He can feel the excitement bubbling up inside him, he’s always had a love for sun, sea and sand type holidays.

“Are you sure?”

Phil strokes the back of Dan’s hand softly with his thumb. “I promise. You can call them and ask them, if you like.”

Dan shakes his head slowly, and lifts his gaze to meet Phil’s once again. “I trust you.”

It takes all of his self-control not to pull Phil in for a kiss right there and then, because the smile that Phil then directs at him is enough to make him melt. He dithers when Phil continues to stroke the back of his hand.

The whole moment is like something he’s never experienced. He’s always hoped to.

“We’d best start packing,” Phil says softly, “We leave in the morning.”

He then stands up and drags Dan up with him.

“I’m excited don’t get me wrong, but I really don’t want to pack.”

Phil places a hand on his hip.

“If I pack for you, what’s in it for me?”

Dan is sure he feels his mouth drop open. There had been many occasions recently where he’d asked himself ‘did Phil actually just say that’, but this was by far the most unbelievable.

“I’m sure we could work something out.”

Dan isn’t sure if they're flirting or not, but he's playing along as best as his spontaneity will allow him.

Phil raises an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“I-“ he cuts himself off, not knowing how to finish that sentence.

Phil cocks his head to the side slightly, waiting for an answer.

“I’ll… fetch all of the parcels that come for either of us at, like, seven in the morning.”

Phil taps a finger against his chin.

“You know what, deal. You still need to come and tell me what you want to take but I’ll pack for you. I pride myself on being talented at useless things like this.”

Dan nudges into him and Phil laughs.

“Come on, loser.”

\--

Neither of them sleep. They text for about two hours, but Dan eventually gives up and walks into Phil’s room and sits on the end of the bed so they can talk face to face instead.

When they end up surrounded by fellow groggy tourists at the airport at six in the morning, Dan really regrets not even trying to sleep. He struggles to keep his eyes open whilst they check in their cases and pad through security, but Phil seems as upbeat as ever, even without his morning coffee(s).

“Here,” Phil slides a steaming mug across the table as they sit in one of the cafes near the gate. “Hopefully this will wake you up a bit.”

“I’m sorry I’m so… like this.” Dan brings the mug up to his lips and takes a small sip without even knowing what it is.

Turns out it's hot chocolate, much to his delight.

“No need to apologise, I know by now that you’re not a morning person.” Phil smiles.

“Do you still think this is weird?” Dan hears himself ask before his brain has processed it.

Phil presses his lips together and cradles his own mug in his hands. “Think what’s weird?”

Dan shrugs. “I don’t know, just… this.”

“The fact that we were both cripplingly lonely and applied for a tv show which promised us we’d get married to our soulmate but the catch was that we wouldn’t meet said soulmate until we walked down the aisle and that’s our ever so romantic love story origin?”

Dan blinks a few times, wondering how Phil managed to say all of that without pausing for breath.

“Uh, yeah. That.”

“Not really,” Phil shrugs, “Just feels natural by this point.”

“Elaborate…”

Phil meets his gaze for a couple of seconds.

“It just, by now, feels natural to wake up and know I’ll be spending the day with you, it’s nice to not wake up to an empty house anymore.”

“That just might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said,” Dan jokes, and Phil rolls his eyes before throwing his balled-up muffin wrapper at him.

A thought bubbles up in him and dances on the tip of his tongue, but the tannoy announcing their gate is now open interrupts him, and Phil’s grin nearly sends Dan into a meltdown.

“Shall we?” Phil asks as he places his backpack on his shoulder. He's practically bouncing on the spot.

“We shall, good sir.” Dan tips an invisible hat and Phil holds up his hands and begins to walk away.

“Oh come on, that was funny!” Dan calls as he picks up his own bag and runs after him.

\--

“We’re on our honeymoon!” Phil says gleefully as they hand over their boarding passes, and the girl smiles back at him.

“Congratulations!” she smiles warmly, “I hope you both have a lovely time!”

“Thank you” both men say in sync, and they set off down the corridor, heading towards the plane.

Dan nudges Phil’s shoulder. “That’s like the sixth person you’ve told, nerd.”

“I’m just excited! And i’m proud of us!” Phil replies, nudging Dan right back.

“I’m proud of you for not falling onto the conveyor belt when we put the cases down, and not tripping once since we got here.”

“Hey, I resent that.” Phil pouts, and Dan laughs.

He reaches over and ruffles Phil’s hair. When Phil doesn’t respond dramatically like usual, Dan stops walking and looks at him suspiciously, though it takes Phil a few more steps to realise.

“What?” he asks.

“You didn’t respond to me messing your hair up like you usually do.”

Phil smirks. “Don’t care. Didn’t bring my straighteners.”

Dan gasps and places his hand on his heart. “Phil Lester what has happened to you?”

Phil walks up to him and flicks him gently on the forehead.

“It’s _Howell-Lester_ , how many times,” he shakes his head and tuts, “and what can I say, maybe you’re changing me for the better.”

Dan throws his arm around Phil’s shoulders as they continue walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so you know, this chapter p much signifies the start of stuff FINALLY starting to happen in this fic are you hyped because i'm hyped 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this chapter, though, please let me know what you thought and be sure to share it around if you're feeling particularly nice :)
> 
> also, since i updated here last, i saw dodie in concert and cried a lot and MET HER??? it's still sinking in and i saw the fan book i gave her on her snapchat story and freaked out but in other news today my uni held a meet the guide dogs event and i spent ten minutes surrounded by dogs and it was my personal heaven and as my fav breed is a labrador and there was only one lab i spent most of my time on him and i don't regret a damn thing
> 
> BUT YES THINGS ARE FINALLY GOING TO START HAPPENING IN THIS FIC IT IS EXCITING THIS IS EXCITING GET EXCITED i may make your heart or break your heart who knows what plans i have knocking about in this head of mine.....


	12. Twelve.

The entire plane ride there, when they aren’t asleep on each other’s shoulders, Phil is chatting excitedly about all that he wants to do.

“I’m honestly up for just a couple of walks around our area and then spending all the daytime around the pool and the beach, maybe step out a bit at night-time.” He lists off the activities on his fingers.

“Whatever’s good for you,” Dan replies, stretching his legs in the (limited) legroom and letting out a yawn.

The seatbelt sign then pings above their heads, and the pilot’s tinny voice comes through.

_“We will now be beginning our descent. Please turn off any electronic devices and ensure your seatbelts are on correctly. The temperature is thirty-eight degrees and it is approximately one-thirty in the afternoon. Thank you for flying with us today, cabin crew prepare for landing.”_

“It’s happening, it’s happening, it’s happening!” Phil repeats, his eyes are brighter than usual.

“It’s happening.” Dan confirms, and Phil turns to grin at him, and Dan feels as if he's going to melt under his husband’s gaze.

At least his feelings are understandable on a honeymoon, even if they aren’t reciprocated.

The second the seatbelt sign ticks off, Phil is out of his seat and already grabbing their hand luggage.

“Come on!” he calls over his shoulder to Dan, already in the queue of people waiting to get off of the plane.

Dan takes a deep breath to steady his heartrate and follows.

\--

Whilst at baggage claim, Dan catches himself staring (without realising he was doing so) about six times. Thankfully Phil is focused every single time on waiting for their cases to arrive, but Dan then keeps his gaze on the floor, looking up only when Phil reaches for their cases (which arrived close together).

“All done! Let’s go!” he smiles and turns to head to where the coaches are waiting to take the tourists to their hotels, Dan following close behind him.

Until he stops in the middle of the airport, like a lot of fellow tourists, because a guy is on one knee proposing, and the sight alone brings tears to Dan’s eyes.

He watches as the guy's girlfriend agrees and the ring is slipped onto her finger, and everyone in the room applauds.

“Come on,” Phil appears back at Dan’s side, “Let’s let them have this moment. We’ve already had our day.”

Dan nods and begins following Phil once again, but he can’t help turning back to look at the couple, and he can’t ignore the pang in his chest.

\--

The journey to the hotel and the check-in process pass in a blur, all Dan can focus on is the couple getting engaged in the airport, for some reason he just can’t stop thinking about them.

The receptionist teases them light-heartedly when she hands over the key card for the Honeymoon Suite, and Phil blushes. Dan barely takes notice and only utters a thank you as they make their way towards the lifts.

Their room is beautiful, and Dan is brought out of his thoughts for a moment or two as he goes into a slight panic. Phil’s parents paid for this room, and it makes him lightheaded to only think of the cost.

“What are you thinking about?” Phil asks, taking a break from unpacking.

“We can’t stay here.”

“Um… why?”

Dan sighs. “Your parents paid for this and it must have cost them a fortune, I can’t take advantage of that. We’re going back down to the reception desk to ask for a new room and we’ll pay your parents back the difference.”

Phil places a hand on his hip. “There’s no way in everloving hell I’m doing that.”

“Well we can’t stay here!”

“We can and we are. I’m putting my foot down.”

That takes Dan by surprise, he’s never heard Phil speak in such a way. This authoritative side isn’t exactly unappealing, and he isn’t sure whether the fact is a good thing or not.

“Look,” Phil runs a hand through his hair, “Let’s go down to the bar, have a drink, I’ll call my parents and _they_ can tell you how stupid you’re being.”

“I’m not being stupid, I’m being-“

Phil presses a finger to his lips.

“A honeymoon spoiler. So stop it. I want to have fun with my husband, will you stop ruining that for me? Please?” he even takes the liberty of sticking out his bottom lip, and it causes Dan to ball his hands into fists to stop from giving into his desires (again).

He doesn't say another word, and Phil takes his hand, and he allows himself to be led out of the room, wondering how the hell he's going to cope with his feelings in such close proximity for a week.

\--

Dan's spent two hours on the phone with Phil’s parents. Thankfully, due to both Dan and Phil’s jobs, they can afford the long-distance phone bill that the call racks up, but Phil’s parents eventually manage to convince Dan that everything is fine and they're happy to have paid, but Dan plans on buying them an extravagant gift as a token of his appreciation when they get back home, not that Phil knew about it.

When he walks back into their suite from the balcony to hand Phil his phone back, he stops in his tracks. Phil is fast asleep, curled on top of the covers, and Dan’s grip tightened around the phone as he fights the urge to run over and kiss him awake. Thankfully the realisation of how weird, creepy and non-consensual that would be snaps him out of it pretty quickly.

The sun is beginning to set and dinner is close to being served, and Dan knows by now that Phil needs a decent amount of time to come around from a nap, to get his bearings and whatnot.

So Dan gently rocks Phil’s shoulder until he wakes up, groggily of course.

“Did you talk to them?” Phil asks sleepily as he sits up and rubs his eyes.

“Should I presume all of the Lesters have silver tongues?”

Phil smiles. “Only if we really want something. Technically that should mean you have half a silver tongue… by law. Or something.”

“A bronze tongue?” Dan ponders, and Phil thinks about it for a second.

“That could work.”

“You’re so weird. But anyway get dressed, dinner’s served in like five minutes.”

Phil pouts. “But I want to sleep some more.”

“You can’t have the honeymoon you want if you’re asleep the whole time…”

That immediately causes Phil to jump to his feet.

“That’s true!” he ruffles Dan’s hair, then grabs some clothes from the wardrobe and heads into the bathroom to get changed.

\--

Being all-inclusive, they both make full use of the fact they can go back as many times as they want for food and drinks. But as the stars replace the sunlight, they find themselves on the rooftop bar of the hotel, only a few other tables occupied, all by other couples.

“Nice first day?” Dan asks as they look out over the beach, their hotel is in a prime location.

The nightlife is all happening beneath them, local bars and clubs hosting all manner of events and offers enticing hundreds, but Dan can’t help but be relieved when Phil suggests a quiet first night just on the rooftop bar, taking things easy.

“Lovely first day,” Phil answers, and Dan nods in agreement. Even though they had their little dispute over the room situation, now it had all been cleared up the air felt lighter.

“Not homesick?”

Phil turns to face him. “How badly would you vomit right now if I said I never left home?”

Dan pretends to gag. “Quite a lot, I’d reckon. Best not to run the risk.”

“Fair enough, just wanted to check in case I need to use it against you someday. But to answer your question, not at all.”

“Me neither.”

\--

“Can I ask a question? In all seriousness?” Phil asks.

Dan is about to quip the classic ‘you just did’ but there's something about Phil’s tone of voice that stops him. Instead, he nods.

“You’ve been really different since we left the airport…. What happened?” Phil bites his lip, and Dan internally scolds himself for being so obvious, but he just can’t stop thinking about the couple and their proposal.

When Dan doesn’t respond, Phil sighed and took a sip of his cocktail.

“It’s that couple, isn’t it?”

There's no point in lying. He nods. “I just… Please don’t hate me for saying this but I feel like we missed out on that. The romance and the whole proposal ordeal. For some a no-fuss proposal and engagement would be the dream but for me… deep down, I always kind of wanted the full deal, the romantic proposal and the engagement that leaves people jealous. And I know it’s my own fault for applying for a show where I skip all of that but I never thought I’d ever get picked and I-“

“I get it.” Phil interrupts, and takes another sip of his drink before placing the glass back down on the table. Dan finds himself holding his breath as he waits for Phil to speak again. “I know I’ve not been the perfect husband so far, and definitely not the one you deserve. I just-“

He cuts himself off as he takes a deep breath, and he looks as if he's battling himself inside his own head.

“Phil, it’s okay…” Dan reaches forward to place a hand on his shoulder, but Phil takes hold of his hand and grips it tightly.

“Let me just say my piece, please? This is something I’ve been wanting to tell you but I’ve never had the guts. Please just let me say this.”

Dan holds up his other hand in surrender and Phil nods. Dan lightly runs his thumb over the back of Phil’s hand as he begins again.

“It’s been tearing me up since that night we kissed in your old flat, I’m sorry I did what I did, I genuinely wanted nothing more than to keep going. Please _please_ don’t think that I’m not attracted to you or not into this at all. Because I’m crazily attracted to you, in fact I’ve never had such an instant connection to someone, and that _terrifies_ me. So I did what I thought was right in the moment. And I was so wrong, I know I was…”

Dan feels paralyzed, he can’t quite believe what he's hearing, and has to replay the words over and over again. But Phil is nowhere near finished.

“And it terrifies me because… there’s been someone else.”

“As in you’re cheating on me or that this isn’t your first relationship? Because the former will involve me throwing you off of this roof and the latter is fine and I’ll hug you.” Dan finds the will to speak from somewhere.

“When the hell would I have had time to cheat on you, we’re together literally every second of every day!”

Dan shrugs. “You’re speaking ambiguously so I had to clear it up.”

“No I mean this isn’t my first rodeo… you know,” he gestures between the two of them, “this kind of thing.”

“You mean I’m not your first partner? Considering we’re not sixteen, I think that’s fine, Phil.”

Phil quickly turns away and removes his hand from Dan’s, and Dan instantly regrets taking a sarcastic approach.

When he turns back around, his eyes are glassy behind his glasses and Dan can see he's shaking.

“I got fucking jilted at the altar, Dan!”


	13. Thirteen.

“Phil, I-“

“It’s fine.” Phil cuts him off before getting up from his seat and quickly walking back into the hotel, leaving Dan staring after him with tears in his own eyes, whilst the other couples on the terrace turn to face him in confusion.

“Sorry,” Dan says nervously as he passes the other couples and heads after Phil.

The lift doors are just closing as Dan arrives, and he sighs in frustration as he repeatedly presses the button to call it back up.

Phil must have known Dan would be following him, as he leaves their suite door slightly ajar behind him, and Dan takes a deep breath as he walks inside.

The suite is pitch black, and Dan would’ve questioned whether or not Phil was actually there if not for the soft crying coming from the far end of the room near the windows.

He silently sits in the seat beside Phil and awkwardly watches him for a couple of seconds, not knowing what the hell to say.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” Phil’s voice is hoarse and he's still choked from his sobs, “Please go and have another drink or something.”

Hearing Phil’s voice in the state it was in is enough to make Dan’s heart ache, and he knows that he already sub-consciously has a deep-rooted hatred for whoever has broken Phil down this much.

“No,” he replies softly, “For better or for worse, right?”

Phil laughs bitterly. “You think now is the best time to start quoting wedding vows at me?”

“I’ve never been the best with timings.”

A few tense moments of silence follow.

“Listen, I’m really not in the mood to talk about it anymore tonight. I kind of just want to curl up in bed and try to get some sleep. Is that okay with you?”

“Whatever you want.”

Dan stays where he is whilst Phil goes into the bathroom to change and clean himself up (his words, not Dan’s), and Dan takes to staring out at the Spanish night sky, admiring how the colours all blend into one before resulting in a blackish overtone, sunsets always seem to be drawn out abroad.

He's so wrapped up in his daydream that he doesn’t hear Phil return, and it's only when a soft voice speaks that he's brought back to reality.

“Can I ask a favour?”

Dan snaps his head around, and Phil is stood awkwardly in the middle of the room in his pyjamas. The lights are now back on, and Dan can’t help but notice how red Phil’s eyes are and his face is blotchy, and it pains him that he has no idea how he can help.

Dan nods. “Anything.”

Phil looks down to the floor and links his hands together.

“Can I have a hug?”

In any other scenario, Dan would’ve laughed and made some kind of joke. But instead he jumps up from his seat and brings Phil into a tight hug, trying to somehow squeeze out some of his sadness. Phil slowly brings his arms up to hug Dan back, though extremely loosely.

“You don’t deserve this,” Dan whispers, he can still hear Phil’s shaky breaths, “You know that, right?”

“No,” comes Phil’s reply, barely audible if Dan wouldn’t have been listening for it.

“You deserve the happy cliché relationship you’ve always wanted, no matter what your head might be telling you.”

Phil begins sobbing again, and his head is now resting against Dan’s chest, and Dan feels the tears soaking through the thin material of his shirt.

“I’ll prove it to you. I promise.”

Phil doesn’t respond then, but tightens his arms around Dan’s torso, and it feels like progression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a short lil chapter that allows me to move onto the next part of the storyline, hope you enjoyed it anyway!


	14. Fourteen.

The next morning, Dan is out of the suite before Phil wakes up. When he returns, two tickets in hand, Phil is still fast asleep.

He waits ten minutes, and when Phil shows no sign of waking up, he walks over and drops a pillow onto Phil’s head, waking him up instantly.

“What are you doing…” he says groggily, and wipes his eyes.

“I booked us on an excursion to the market, and the coach leaves in an hour. We need to eat before we go which involves you getting your lazy ass out of bed.”

“An excursion to the market?” Phil repeats, processing the information in his still half-asleep mind.

Dan suddenly doubts if he’d made a good decision or not. “I just thought it could be fun…”

“It will be fun!” Phil exclaims with a sudden burst of energy, and gets out of bed and immediately pulls Dan in for a quick hug. “I’ll just get changed and we’ll go, yeah?”

“Sure.” Dan smiles.

As Phil closes the bathroom door behind him, Dan sits on the edge of the bed and runs a hand through his hair. He hadn’t even thought twice about booking the tickets, he just saw a brochure in the hotel lobby and thought it would be something Phil might like, and booked them on it.

He's at the stage where he would do anything to see Phil smile, anything to make sure there would never be a repeat of the night before, Dan had barely gotten any sleep because of it.

Also, in case he hadn’t realised it sooner, he's definitely feeling something beyond attraction. Every time Phil touches him he feels alive, in the most cliché of ways, and he can’t be more excited about finally having that kind of connection. It just breaks his heart that Phil has such a way to go to even begin to consider feeling the same way.

But baby steps are better than no steps at all, he continues to tell himself.

“Ready to go?” Phil breaks him out of his thoughts, Dan hadn’t even noticed him come back out.

“After you,” he gestures to the door, and Phil smiles before exiting the suite, Dan following.

\--

The second they step off of the coach, Dan watches as Phil’s eyes light up.

“This is so cool!” he rocks back and forth on his heels a few times before setting off towards the first stall in sight, which has rugs and carpets on offer.

Dan doesn’t stop smiling as Phil points out which carpet patterns he likes and why. It should be a boring topic by anyone’s standards, but he can listened to Phil talk about it for the rest of his life, the fact he has such enthusiasm in each of his words and speaks so animatedly about everything is enough to make Dan want to melt.

The next stall sports accessories. Phil makes his way down the hat shelf, then runs back over to Dan and begins placing the various hats upon Dan’s head, and laughs at some that look plain ridiculous.

“I look like a Mad Hatter reject,” Dan mumbles as he takes the top hat off of his head and places it on Phil’s, and cups his hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter as it immediately topples straight back off.

“The universe clearly doesn’t want me to be a fancy top hat gentleman,” Phil states as they stare down at the hat, and Dan rolls his eyes playfully as he picks it up and places it back on the shelf. As he does, he notices that Phil has missed one to take back over.

“There,” Dan says as he slides the beanie over Phil’s head, “That’s taken at least ten years off of you!”

Phil places a hand over his heart. “Daniel I am hurt.”

“It looks good though, look.” Dan nods to the mirror behind them and Phil turns to look in it, and Dan sees his eyes widen slightly.

“I’ll buy it for you,” he offers, and Phil spins back around.

“And why do you want to buy me a beanie of all things?”

Dan shrugs. “You deserve nice things.”

“You’re the best sugar daddy ever!” Phil grins as he hands the beanie back over to Dan to go and pay for it.

“First of all, never talk about that again. Secondly, you’re the oldest one of the two of us here so…”

“Sugar… Son. Nephew. Male relative of some kind.”

“Phil, stop talking.”

Phil laughs and holds up his hands in surrender.

Dan has really missed Phil’s laugh.

\--

“You don’t have to buy me everything I say that I like!” Phil insists as Dan brings back over the picture frame that Phil had picked out on another stall. The collection of bags in Phil’s hands is ever-growing.

“Tell me, have you always been the one to buy the gifts in a relationship, never received them?”

Phil presses his lips together, and his eyes meet Dan’s.

“How did you know that...”

Dan smiles and nudges Phil’s arm.

“Like I said last night, I’m proving it to you. Just enjoy the ride.”

Phil opens his mouth to reply, but Dan cuts him off, and instead nods towards a stall selling various baked goods, which is more than successful in enrapturing Phil’s attention.

As Phil stares in awe at all the cakes and pastries, Dan spares a thankful thought to the hotel lobby, and the fact that the reception desk offered currency conversion.

It's worth every penny to see Phil like he is, smiling and happy.

\--

They've now acquired so many bags that Dan has to carry some.

But the excursion is gradually coming to an end and they're running out of stalls, only one left to explore and peruse.

“I love knick-knacks!” Phil says excitedly as they reach the stall, selling a multitude of miscellaneous objects. Not tacky enough to be souvenirs, but not quality enough to be in high-street stores.

“Remember, anything you want just let me know.” Dan reminds him, and Phil bites his lip.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, it’s my pleasure, truly.”

Phil turns to face him. “No I mean thank you for everything today, and yesterday.”

“Again, it’s my pleasure. Honestly.”

And Phil doesn’t say a word more. He simply smiles warmly and then turns back to the stall, his eyes flicking over all that was for sale.

Dan waits patiently, until eventually Phil gasps.

“What is it?” he asks, and Phil simply points to something near the back of the stall.

A glass star with pastel yellow tinted edges, and a very dark blue circle of sand in its centre. It's delicate and dainty, and beautiful of course, but Dan isn’t entirely sure why it stands out to Phil, but his reaction is all the motivation Dan needs to politely call the stall owner over and point out the star to buy.

“Dan you’ve done enough please let me-“

Dan holds up his hand and shakes his head.

Once the owner has wrapped the star up in bubble wrap and carefully hands it over and wishes the two of them a good day, it's time to head back to the coach.

“Why did the star stand out to you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Dan asks quietly whilst they're on their way back to the hotel.

Phil keeps his gaze on his lap.

“I just found it pretty.”

Dan doesn’t say anything more, but his gut instinct tells him that definitely isn’t the case.

But a few minutes later, as Phil begins reciting various animal facts that he somehow knows off the top of his head, Dan allows himself to relax. He can’t have been doing such a terrible job of making Phil happy.

He even allows himself to think that maybe he might be able to show Phil just how much he means to him, and show him just how much he deserves everything he’s adamant that he doesn’t.

Dan is literally living a cliché romance novel, he knows, but something deep inside him knows that he’d be lying if he said he’d want to be living any other way.


	15. Fifteen.

As soon as they get back to the suite, Phil tips all of his new possessions onto the bed. All except for the star, which he carefully unwraps and puts on the table between the chairs by the window.

“That’s quite a haul you’ve got there” Dan states, and Phil grins, then pulls him into a hug.

“Thank you again.”

“Like I said, you deserve it. The only problem now is we’ll have to somehow figure out how we’re going to get all of this stuff back in our cases to take back home.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Phil waves his hand dismissively. “But there was something I wanted to talk to you about, can we sit?”

Dan’s blood immediately runs cold. Their last ‘talk’ is still weighing on both of their minds. They sit in the chairs by the window, as the bed is still covered in miscellaneous market purchases.

Phil takes a deep breath. “I just wanted to apologise again for the other night. I felt like I was really out of place, snapping at you like that.”

“You didn’t snap at me, Phil. And even if you did, you had every right to. I wasn’t exactly being considerate when the conversation clearly meant a lot to you.”

“I’m still sorry. I just never really knew how I’d tell you and it just came out like it did. I didn’t want it to be this big dark cloud looming over us forever, you know? Ever since my brother made that joke at the wedding, I knew it was a conversation we’d have to have at some point.”

“And I’d have respected if you wanted it to come at a later time, you know that.”

Phil smiles. “I do know that, and I appreciate it. And there’s one more thing. I meant what I said, about that night at your flat and… all the other things I said. And I’d say them once more now I’m stone cold sober, if it’d prove it to you.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, I believed you then and I’ll believe you now if for some crazy reason you choose to do it again.”

Phil lets out a sigh. “If only more people in the world were like you, Dan Howell.”

Dan doesn’t bother making the surname joke that seems to have become their trademark, he just remains silent and accepts the compliment. He doesn’t know exactly the intent behind it, but he appreciates it anyway.

“I think they’ll still be serving dinner downstairs, want to go grab something?”

Dan shakes his head. “I’m not really hungry, but I’ll meet you down there in a couple of minutes? I just need to freshen up a little bit.”

“Okay, I’ll save you a seat then, I guess?”

Dan smiles and Phil leaves, and Dan immediately sinks into the chair and rubs his hands over his face.

He doesn't know how he's feeling or what to do or say, but he knows who would.

He retrieves his laptop from his case and immediately Skypes Ebony, who is by some miracle always awake, the girl barely ever sleeps.

“How goes things, Casanova?” she greets with a wide grin, which immediately drops as she notices Dan isn’t returning it. “You look like shit, what happened? Trouble in paradise?”

Dan knows there's no point in lying to her or beating around the bush, there never has been.

“Kind of, kind of not.”

“Don’t be ambiguous with me, Howell. Spill” she's carefully painting her nails as they speak.

“Basically Phil got jilted at the altar sometime in his past.”

Dan watches as the brush tumbles out of Ebony’s hand as she snaps her head up to meet Dan’s gaze through the webcam, momentarily looking down to pick up the brush and curse loudly.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Why would I lie?”

Ebony presses her lips together and screws the cap back onto the nail polish bottle.

“Shit that’s terrible. He doesn’t deserve that.”

“And I can tell it’s still fucking him up so I’m trying to prove to him that he deserves a cutesy relationship which I’m honestly so fucking down for but I don’t know what to do.”

They're both silent for a little while, but Dan can’t stop voicing his thoughts.

“I just don’t want to fuck all of this up…”

“Dan look at me,” Ebony’s voice is gentle and sincere. Dan has always called it her ‘serious voice’, only brought out when she wants to make a point. He looks up at the screen. “You’re a lovely, perfect gentleman who Phil is very lucky to have in his life, nevertheless be married to, and you both know that. He’ll know that you’re trying, and I know that you’ll be pulling out all of the stops, because that’s the kind of person you are. You fight for what you love.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ebony raises her eyebrows. “Do you _really_ need me to spell it out for you?”

Dan suddenly feels a thrill run through him, and his eyes widen, a hand flies up to his mouth.

“Oh my god.”

Ebony grins. “I’m so happy for you! I told you it would happen. Remember when you used to spend nights on end crying in my kitchen saying this moment would never come?”

Dan slowly drops his hand. “Fuck, Ebony, I’m in love.”

“Say it once more for the people in the back?” she's visibly over the moon for him, and he has rarely been more thankful to have her in his life.

“I’m in love…” he repeats, and Ebony cups a hand around her ear, prompting him to say it louder and clearer. “I’m in love with Phil Lester…”

“Hell yes you are!” Ebony does a little fist pump in the air.

“But how do I even go about… you know…”

Ebony rests her head on her hands.

“I think telling him would be a good start,” she whispers, as if it were obvious. Which it probably is.

It feels so liberating to finally admit it to himself, and admit it to someone else. To have someone else already aware somehow makes it even better and even more of a relief. He isn’t crazy and deluded, at the very least.

“I thought it was only like, a really strong attraction, I never thought I would-“

“But you _are,_ ” Ebony interjectes, a wide smile still playing on her lips. “And you’re already _married_ to the guy. Go find your husband and tell him, stop wasting your time with me!”

Ebony then abruptly ends the Skype call (she knows Dan hated goodbyes) and Dan immediately grabs the suite key and prepares to head down to the restaurant to find Phil, adrenaline coursing through his veins and every nerve feeling on edge, in the best way imaginable.

He catches sight of his ring as he reaches for the doorknob, and he sub-consciously runs a finger over it and feels a new wave of giddiness and determination wash over him. He's going to tell Phil that he loves him, and nothing is going to stop him now.

Until he literally runs straight into a startled looking Phil, who is standing directly outside of the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooh dan be realising stuff and phil potentially overheard said stuff
> 
> what do you think will happen in the story? what are your theories? let me know and all that good stuff, i love interacting with you all :)


	16. Sixteen.

None of them speak for a few tense seconds.

“How much of that did you hear?” Dan mumbles, looking down at the ground.

“How much do you want me to have heard?” Phil’s tone of voice is indecipherable.

Dan scuffs his shoe against the ground. “That’s not what I asked.”

Phil sighs. “Since _‘kind of, kind of not’_.”

“And yet you didn’t knock or anything.”

“It’s not my fault the walls are paper thin and the door wasn’t shut properly!” Phil has raised his voice slightly.

“I never said it was, I’d just have appreciated if you’d have let me know you were there rather than eavesdropping!” Dan has now matched Phil’s volume.

“Oh I’m sorry, I guess I was thrown off by you telling _your_ best friend that I got fucking jilted at the altar!”

Dan’s throat closes up on him. Any anger he was previously harbouring has now melted into guilt, and tears are in his eyes for a different reason than before. Phil is still breathing heavily and visibly shaking.

“Just don’t talk to me for a while, Dan. Just leave me alone.”

With that, Phil turns and heads back down the corridor, and Dan watches him go. His instinct is to chase after Phil, but he doesn’t. Knowing he’s caused Phil to be in such a state is enough to make his stomach churn.

So he walks back into the suite, crawls under the covers, and cries until he falls asleep.

\--

Dan is half-expecting Phil to have returned when he wakes up.

But he wakes up to an empty suite and a pillow soaked with his tears, and his laptop still in the same place from his Skype call when he realised his feelings. The Skype call that may have seriously damaged his marriage, as things appeared at the moment.

A part of him wants to Skype with Ebony or Nick, assuming that one of them will know what to do, but he stops himself. He's an adult, he has to fix this himself. Or at least try.

\---

“Does Phil know you’re doing this?” Martyn, Phil’s brother, asks.

“We’re not exactly on the best of terms right now,” Dan bites his lip, and Martyn sighs, the sound tinny through the laptop.

“He can be a drama queen when he wants to be, that’s for sure. What happened and why are you randomly Skyping me on your Honeymoon?”

Dan swallows thickly. “I kind of figured you’d be the best person to talk to about this…”

“Go on” Martyn is clearly intrigued.

“He told me about… you know. His last… wedding… thing.”

Martyn’s expression drops and Dan instantly wonders if he’s done the wrong thing by bringing it up.

“He told you about that already? Without sounding like we’re in school, that really does mean he likes and trusts you.”

“I mean, we’re married, what would we have if we didn’t have trust?”

“You sound like straight out of a shitty self-help book” Martyn laughs.

“My mind is beyond fried recently so I don’t know what I’m saying by this point” Dan shrugs.

“A honeymoon from heaven, then,” Martyn jokes. “But I think this could be a good thing, as strange and unlikely as it might seem right now. You’re a good guy, Dan, and he knows that. Amber wasn’t a nice girl.”

Dan begins pulling at a thread on his jumper.

“Amber?”

Martyn nods.

“Amber Mayfield. They were together for two years before he popped the question. Though I don’t think it was entirely his decision, if you get what I’m saying.”

Dan shakes his head. “Not at all.”

“She was a master manipulator and had him wrapped around her little finger. He’s always been one to take things nice and easy but whatever Amber wanted, Amber got. You should see how much of his first big paycheck was spent on stupid shit she wanted.”

Dan feels a pang in his chest. “Were they highschool sweethearts?”

“Did you miss when I said two years?” Martyn laughs heartily, and Dan nervously laughs along and apologises. “But no, they definitely weren’t. She was a makeup artist on set of one of the first films he edited, one of the big ones. That’s how they met, in case you were wondering.”

“Can’t help but feel they met under better circumstances than Phil and I did.”

Martyn shakes his head. “Nah, who doesn’t want to meet their spouse on a primetime show seen by potential millions of people?”

Dan forces a (fake) smile but thankfully Martyn continues.

“But anyway, long story short, the wedding day arrived. My parents and I hadn’t seen him for about three months before, because Amber was incredibly demanding and paranoid. I noticed something was wrong when the first few rows of seats on her side of the room were empty. Her family and friends weren’t there, not a single one. We waited for about an hour, but nobody else arrived.”

“So she told her family she wasn’t even going to show?” Dan asks, feeling anger bubble up inside him again. 

Martyn looks sadder than before, Dan can’t blame him.

“So we think. Nobody’s heard from her since. It kind of kills me that it’s obviously still fucking him up.”

“Yeah, me too.” Dan’s eyes feel heavier, and he knows that he’ll probably be crying in a minute or two. “What do you think I can do to help him?”

“I’m sorry Dan, I honestly don’t know.” Martyn has his gaze cast downwards, and he's clearly still a little emotional. “It’s not just something you can go and kiss away, as much as we’d all love it to be. I know he doesn’t feel anything for Amber anymore but I think he’s just scared to open himself up to it again, regardless of the fact you’re already married. If I know my brother at all, and I like to think that I do, he just needs time. It all comes down to if you’re willing to wait for him.”

Dan nods confidently. “I am.” He’s rarely been surer of anything.

Martyn smiles. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Just be gentle with him for a while, old wounds have been opened and he just needs to let it run its course. Considering that first of all you’re in a different country right now and secondly when you get back you’re hours away from the rest of his family, we’re all counting on you.”

Dan allows himself to laugh. “No pressure, then.”

“None at all,” Martyn laughs too, “But I know you can do it. I’ve never heard him as happy as he has been since the wedding, if it helps. We speak on the phone like every other day and I can definitely hear a change. I think we both know the reason why.”

That sends a warm feeling through Dan. “Thanks, Martyn.”

“Anytime. But thank _you_ for finally making my brother happy.”

Dan quickly says his goodbyes and ends the call before he breaks down again.

It's hard to think he apparently makes Phil happy when the last he saw of Phil was pure anger.

Emotions are a fucked up concept, he decides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at least irl dan and phil are happy and in love right
> 
> hold onto that 
> 
> send your hopes and prayers to asad dan and phil,,, me thinks they need it at this moment in time
> 
> this is my first post in the new dnp era, it feels good to be going into it with all of you
> 
> i am also apparently literally the only person who doesn't even remotely miss the old apartment idk why i just don't
> 
> ANYWAY please let me know what you thought and leave a kudos and share if you liked the chapter and thank you for your support! xx


	17. Seventeen.

Phil eventually returns, later that night.

Dan is half-expecting him to be drunk or something, but he's normal, just a lot less angry than the last time Dan saw him. Which can only be a good thing.

“Hi.” Phil is quieter than usual, Dan wonders why.

“Are you okay?”

“Currently or in the grand scheme of things? Because those are two different answers.”

Dan presses his lips together. “Currently.”

Phil makes his way over to sit beside him.

“More guilty than anything.”

“Stop apologizing for every little thing. It’s human nature to make mistakes, give yourself a break.”

“Snapping at my own husband every chance I get isn’t exactly a small mistake. Let me apologize, for my own sanity if nothing else.”

Dan wonders once again if Phil could actually be a real person. He's too much and far too angelic in Dan’s eyes.

“No, but I accept the apology anyway. So let’s just move on. I actually wanted to talk to you about-“

“Me first!” Phil interjects, and places a hand over Dan’s mouth to effectively silence him. “I know I’ve been a real ass lately, especially when we’re on our fucking Honeymoon. I’m going through some shit right now but it’s not fair that I keep taking it out on you. So for the rest of this week, whatever you want to do, we’ll do it.”

Though it definitely isn’t what Phil means, Dan’s mind goes to one very specific field of thought. He quickly shakes himself out of that mindset, and Martyn’s earlier words of wisdom are at the forefront of his mind.

“I appreciate that but it’s kind of what I need to talk to you about. We can’t keep going in circles like this, skating around the problem and pretending to play happy families until eventually it all blows up again. It’s only a temporary fix and I can’t live my life like that, not when I’m _married_ to you!”

Phil bites his lip. “You actually sounded a little sad about that last part…”

Dan rolls his eyes. “After everything I’ve said before? How the fuck could you even-“ he squeezes the bridge of his nose. “You know what, different conversation. My point is, I know about Amber.”

At the mention of her name, Phil visibly tenses.

“How did you-“

“Not important. What _is_ important is that you need to talk to me. Trust me enough to confide in me about things like that, keeping it all to yourself isn’t healthy and it’s only building walls in this marriage. Not to sound straight out of a counselling book or anything.”

Phil smiles in amusement for a second, then sighs.

“What do you know already?”

Dan is undeniably shocked, he thought he’d have to work a little harder to get Phil to open up. But he definitely isn’t complaining.

“That she was a makeup artist on the first big film you edited, and she stopped you from seeing your friends and family leading up to the wedding, and that none of her family were at the wedding either.”

Phil is silent for a few seconds. “Well at least I know who your source is now.”

“He was only trying to help me. I asked him, he didn’t just tell me. I also know that Amber was, well-“

“Oh, she was a complete bitch.”

Dan’s head snaps up to meet Phil’s gaze, and Phil shrugged.

“What?”

“What, did you think I was still in love with her or something? I think you’ve interpreted this whole thing a bit wrong.”

Dan casts his gaze down to his lap. “I don’t understand…”

“Dan I’m absolutely terrified of letting you down in this. The whole Amber thing really clued me up to realise that I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing in relationships. She had me whipped from day one and it turned me into a version of myself that I hated, I just went along with whatever she wanted and never questioned anything.”

Phil takes a deep breath.

“And as I’m sure I’ve said before, I’ve never felt what I’ve felt for you before, and that terrifies me, I’m scared I’m going to turn into someone I’m not and scare you away. She really fucked me up, sure, but she also taught me a lot.”

“So you’re not mad?”

Phil laughs weakly. “I was, I won’t lie, but only because I wanted to sit you down and tell you fully about Amber myself, and you telling Ebony about it before I had a chance to even tell _you_ properly and tell you everything really got to me, and I handled it horribly. I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression of me, and I was more so mad at myself for not telling you sooner. Though it’s not ideal that my brother told you everything, it does save an emotional conversation.”

“You don’t think this is already an emotional conversation?”

Phil rests his hand atop Dan’s.

“Not in the same way.”

Dan takes a deep breath. “Can we have a long conversation about this whole thing tomorrow, please? Get everything out in the open?”

Phil nods, and runs his thumb over the back of Dan’s hand.

“Of course. First thing in the morning. We can take the whole day for it if you like.”

Dan smiles and nods. “I would, thank you.” He looks down at their hands, then back to meet Phil’s gaze. “What do we do for the rest of tonight?”

Phil’s smile grows as he slowly intertwines their fingers.

“How about we discuss what _else_ I overheard from that Skype call?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm actually nervous about how this chapter is going to go down with you all so please be kind 
> 
> also i'm not going to change dan's name to daniel bc of the rebrand if anyone's wondering, i don't have the time nor the effort to do that,,, also i'm still suffering from post-tour blues so yeah be kind and love yourself bye


	18. Eighteen.

Dan feels the heat rush to his cheeks, and he flops onto his back and covers his eyes with his free hand that isn’t linked with Phil’s.

“Yeah about that, how about I, like, don’t?”

Phil falls onto his back so they're laying side by side.

“You sounded awfully confident before, what changed?”

Dan can hear the smugness in his voice and it only causes him to go redder in his cheeks and want the ground to swallow him up more.

“What do you _think_ changed?”

Phil laughs quietly, then the room falls into silence.

Dan’s hearing soon tuned into Phil’s soft breathing beside him, and eventually the deep exhale that escaped his lips.

“Well, what if I say it first?”

Dan's sure his ears are deceiving him, though a part of his rationality offered the possibility that he may be misconstruing what Phil just said. But he decides to trust his gut. 

“I’d say you were crazy.”

His breath catches in his throat as Phil gently pulls them both back up to a sitting position and their faces are closer than ever. Dan can see Phil’s freckles that weren’t visible from a couple more centimetres away, and the slight redness in his cheeks that matches his own, no doubt.

Phil’s gaze momentarily drops to Dan’s lips then back to his eyes.

“I guess you make me crazy.”

And then Phil feathers a finger beneath Dan’s chin and brings their lips together, softly and slowly. Dan instinctively brings a hand to cup Phil’s cheek, and Phil smiles into the kiss.

Dan is sure his stomach is doing flips. Every nerve he has is standing on edge and screaming praise and thanks to every higher power that may exist in the universe, but all he can focus on was the way Phil’s lips are moving against his own. How this kiss is so different from the first, full of such different emotion. Sure, there's still lust, but things have definitely changed.

When they break apart, their faces remain close together, just staring into one another’s eyes. It should be weird or at least creepy on some level, Dan had always scoffed when it happened in movies, claiming that ‘this shit doesn’t happen in real life’, yet here he is. And he wouldn’t change a thing.

“I think that I might be a little bit in love with you,” Phil whispers, and bites his lip.

Dan sucks in a breath, though he can’t fight the smile that seems plastered on his face. “Do any of us really know what love is?” he asks, and it's a fair question.

Phil laughs quietly, the breath fanning against Dan’s face. “Isn’t that all the fun of it?”

It's then Dan’s turn to laugh.

“I suppose it is.”

Phil is still holding his gaze, when suddenly he looks down at his hand, where his ring is reflecting in the bright lights above them. When he looks at Dan again a little while later, his eyes are slightly glassy.

“Thank you for marrying me.”

Hearing the words come from such a heartfelt place cause tears to well up in Dan’s eyes, and he sub-consciously runs a finger over his own ring. He still often can’t believe it's all real, even though they're literally on their honeymoon.

“You’re welcome.”

They then both laugh, though the laughs are shaky and mostly out of not knowing how else to handle the intense emotion they're feeling, a mixture of a million and one feelings experienced in such a small timeframe.

Dan then brings Phil in for another kiss, just wanting to experience it again, and hopefully convey exactly what he wants to say since words just seem to be failing him. There's a part of him, a niggle of insecurity in the back of his mind, that dreads if Phil is going to push him away like that night at his flat, but he doesn’t. Instead he pulls Dan closer.

“I love you,” Dan whispers when they break apart, and that’s when a tear rolls down Phil’s cheek, which Dan sees despite Phil wiping it away quickly.

Without him realising, a tear at some point drips down Dan’s cheek, though Phil notices it first and wipes it away with his thumb, then kisses him again. This kiss is shorter than the others, however, as tears have begun flowing fast from the both of them.

Five minutes later, the lights are off and they're under the covers, closer than they had ever slept before, their legs entwined.

Dan falls asleep first, and in the middle of the night shuffles over to snuggle into Phil, Phil opens his arms and Dan fits perfectly. Phil rests his head between Dan’s shoulderblades and falls asleep himself, with a smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i enjoyed writing this chapter rather a lot, i hope you enjoyed reading it just as much!
> 
> remember to leave kudos and comments and subscriiiiiiibe :)


	19. Nineteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil finally sit down to talk about Phil's ex-fiancee Amber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick warning, this chapter has mentions of death towards the end (none of the major characters, though) so if that triggers you in any way just beware that it happens and take care of yourself.

They forgot to set an alarm last night.

A chorus of loud voices parading down the corridor outside their room wakes Dan up, and he automatically stretches his arms out to attempt to wake the rest of his body up, but freezes when his arm hits something.

And then last night comes flooding back.

He remembers feeling a tiny bit chilly in the middle of the night (that damn air conditioning that they never turned off) and, in his half asleep state, he shuffled into Phil for warmth, without realising what he was doing. And he definitely now remembered how Phil opened his arms to allow a loose embrace. And how undeniably thrilling it was, even if the whole thing was slightly blurry around the edges due to tiredness.

They aren’t in the same position anymore, Dan supposed he must’ve warmed up again and mostly moved out of Phil’s arms, though one of Phil’s hands was still resting lightly on his hip - how he didn’t notice sooner, he didn’t know.

He contemplates his next move, how best to get up and not wake Phil up in the process, but it turns out it's all in vain, as Phil soon stretches a few minutes later.

“Morning,” he says with a yawn, and Dan reaches for his phone.

“Try again,” he replies, and holds out his phone, displaying the time as past noon. 

“So I take it we missed breakfast?”

Dan shrugs. “I doubt they’ll have kept it on longer just for us. We could still make lunch, though.”

“The promise of lunch is all I need,” Phil grins and gets out of bed, grabs some clothes and heads into the bathroom. “I’m very easily motivated.”

Dan props himself up against the pillows and tosses his phone around in his hands. Part of him wants to tell Ebony and to an extent Martyn what had happened, and he types out some draft messages to potentially send later. But his mind inevitably keeps going back to what else is ultimately on the menu as well as lunch: the conversation about Amber. They've already scratched the surface, or so he assumed, but there's doubt niggling in the back of his mind that he knows isn’t going away any time soon.

He hopes that it isn’t intimidation, he's almost certain Amber isn’t even in Phil’s life anymore, so he has no right to be intimidated or jealous, but he can’t rule it out.

He's lost in his thoughts as he gets dressed and waits for Phil to return, and up until they're walking out of the door, it's only when Phil taps him on the shoulder that he snaps out of it.

Dan turns to face him and Phil leans forward to quickly kiss him.

“I just really wanted to do that, sorry.” There's a hint of blushing across Phil’s cheeks.

“A good afternoon indeed.” Dan smiles, and links their fingers together.

“Happy Honeymoon!” Phil is back to his chirpy self, and Dan can’t stop the snort of laughter that escapes him. The goofy smile that apparently only Phil can elicit from him is back, pride of place across his lips.

“Since when were we that annoying couple who says things like ‘Happy Honeymoon’?”

“Since now, obviously” Phil replies, and nudges Dan’s shoulder.

“I want a refund.”

Phil laughs and squeezes his hand. “Exchange only. When I’m old and grey you can trade me in for a younger and hotter model, okay?”

Dan taps a finger to his chin. “I never thought my marriage would only last several months.”

Phil feigns shock and places a hand on his chest.

“Daniel how dare you!” he takes a few second-long break to stick out his bottom lip, “I have at least a year left before I wilt into an elder!”

They both break down into laughter, and finally make it out of the suite and head towards the lifts.

“You were definitely going to Daniel Howell me but didn’t because you know I’d do the surname thing,” Dan says as they're making their way through the lobby to the restaurant, their linked hands swinging between them.

“How the-how did you know that?” Phil asks, stopping in his tracks and placing his free hand on his hip.

“Guess I’m just getting to know you.” Dan shrugs, “That or you’re just an open book.”

Phil sighs and they resume walking.

“That’s not fair! You’re an editor, you _work_ with books!” Phil whines as they're plating up their lunch, and Dan smirks.

“Ouch, hitting me where it hurts, my enjoyable career. How long have you been thinking up that stellar comeback?”

Phil nudges him and blushes. “Shut up.”

\--

The afternoon sun is shining down and families are having fun by the pool and various couples are dotted around the sun terrace, sharing laughs over icy drinks. Dan and Phil are amongst them, sat at opposite ends of a little glass-topped table. Phil is taking much more frequent sips than Dan, though Dan can hardly blame him.

“So where do we even begin with this?” Phil asks, and scratches the back of his neck nervously.

To stop himself from fidgeting, Dan clasps his hands around his glass and begins forming little patterns in the condensation. “Wherever you want. I presume we have a lot to get through."

When Phil doesn’t say anything, Dan takes a deep breath and speaks up again.

“I think it’s important we do this. The second we step foot back in England the cameras are going to be back on us, Terry told me. The network have it all scheduled out. Now is the best time, whilst it’s just us.”

“It’s not exactly Honeymoon talk, though, is it?”

Dan presses his lips together. “You’re stalling.”

Phil meets his gaze for a few seconds, then nods glumly.

“We met on the set of the film. I was visiting the director and producers for the first of many meetings, and Amber directed me to the right place. She had that charismatic aura about her and it wasn’t like anything I’d known before, I kind of just felt myself gravitate back towards her the second I left the meeting.”

He takes another sip of his drink.

“I found her again in the same trailer and I don’t think I’d ever been that shy in my life. But strangely she didn’t question why I was there, she actually offered to ‘touch up my face’, and I agreed even though I had nothing else to do that day. We got to talking and we just clicked, and I left the trailer with her number scrawled on my hand in red lipstick.”

He laughs softly. “It sounds straight out of a shitty romance novel now that I say it out loud.”

Dan knows he shouldn’t be feeling the way he is. He knows it's jealousy. He has no right to be, especially since _he_ was the one who insisted they have this conversation.

“Martyn was in the room when I eventually called her. He’d written out note cards for me, written out exactly what to say. He knew how much of a lost cause I was, as, believe it or not, I wasn’t all too experienced in the old dating scene.” He paused for a chuckle. “I couldn’t believe my luck when she agreed to go out with me that weekend. I felt as if the stars had aligned in my favour for once.”

Dan knows how that felt.

“When I came to meet her from her flat she looked so beautiful, I kind of felt as if I had all the breath knocked out of me. It was surreal that someone like her was out with someone like me, you know?”

Dan wants to interrupt that he knows  _exactly_ how that feels, but he doesn’t. Instead he lets the jealousy grow.

“And then steadily one date turned into six dates, my flat became our flat, and before I knew it I was in the city picking out a ring and blowing almost all the money I’d earned from the film.”

“What did your family think?” Dan has to ask.

Phil’s gaze drops to his lap, and a frown appears momentarily.

“Kind of a grey area. I refused to believe what people were telling me, I was so wrapped up in Amber and what I had convinced myself I felt that I didn’t see sense. It was always her family that we stayed with at Christmas, it was always her family that we invited over, it was always her friends that we invited to parties.”

Phil pauses for a moment, and squeezes his eyes shut.

“I even missed my grandma’s last birthday because Amber had convinced me to stay home and wait for her to call to pick her and her friends up from the day spa.”

“Phil-“

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye, Dan.” Phil’s voice is low, barely above a mumble, and his head is hung, eyes glassy. “To my own grandma. The worst part is, she didn’t say anything about it. She just said she was happy that I was happy. And I- I fucking wasn’t. I was miserable. I just wouldn’t admit it to myself.”

Dan reaches over and gently rests his hand atop Phil’s, and Phil instantly wraps his fingers around Dan’s and squeezes his hand as if his life depends on it.

“… I missed her funeral because Amber dragged me to see an opera with her parents. I-Why didn’t I fucking say anything, Dan?”

Phil chokes on his words, and uses his free hand to wipe his eyes, which doesn’t really do anything, tears are still falling. Dan feels tears well up in his own eyes just at seeing Phil in such a way.

“You didn’t know she was manipulating you, Phil. I won’t lie and say you couldn’t have done anything, but your grandma only wanted what was best for you. She thought you were happy, _you_ thought you were happy, at least to an extent, so she passed on with that confirmation. She wouldn’t have held any resentment.”

Phil squeezes his hand impossibly tighter, and Dan doesn’t say anything more. He decides just to let Phil get out any emotions he needed to, and not pry. He'll be there for whatever Phil needed, and that's enough. He knows.

It's a few minutes later when Phil’s tears stop, and he exhales and takes another sip of his drink. His eyes are still red-rimmed from all the crying he’s done, and Dan can feel his heart swelling with empathy.

“Amber even planned the proposal. I’d booked a reservation at the restaurant we had one of our first dates at, and whilst I was working on a new project she rang and cancelled it and made a reservation at a new restaurant that had just opened up. She even arranged a celebratory cake to be brought out after our meal because she knew I’d have asked by then.”

He sighs. “I’d bought her everything. A brand new wardrobe, spent I dread to think how much on jewellery, and the miscellaneous purchases through the years could probably have bought me a new flat altogether. I remember one time Martyn came around and sat me down to have a serious chat with me about how she had changed me for the worse, which he was completely right about. But I just saw red. I pushed him out and slammed the door in his face, and cried for hours until Amber came home and told me to man up.”

“What a charmer,” Dan mumbles, but Phil doesn’t acknowledge it.

“And obviously you-you know what happened at the wedding. I was just lucky I’d stood my ground a bit with Amber and was back on speaking terms with my family, I don’t know what I’d have done if I wasn’t. I felt sick to my stomach as the minutes ticked away and Amber and her family just didn’t arrive. Everything hit me like a ton of bricks, and I remember just collapsing and shutting down.” He dropped his gaze again and swallowed. “I don’t remember what happened for the next few days. I was just holed up in my parents’ house, because my mum didn’t want me to be alone. She was scared for me, I could see it in her eyes. Louise, Caspar and Dodie visited a few times and did the best they could, but I just felt crushed. Needless to say when I got back to my flat it had been picked clean and her stuff was nowhere to be found.”

“Fuck, Phil,” Dan says, no other words forming in his brain. He gently rubs his thumb against the back of Phil’s hand.

“I bet Martyn didn’t tell you about our grandparents, did he?”

“He didn’t mention your grandma, if that’s what you’re-“

“Grandparents. Plural. My-My grandad died the week after I was jilted.”

Dan can’t feel any worse. Partly out of empathy, partly out of guilt at prompting Phil to tell him everything, partly out of pure unadulterated anger towards Amber.

“I was in the hospital with him when it happened. The rest of my family had left to get lunch from the canteen but I’d just gotten back from there. I was the last one he spoke to in his lifetime.”

It turns out Dan can indeed feel worse.

“You know what he said to me? The very last words he spoke?”

Dan simply shakes his head.

Phil swallows. “He took my hand and said ‘you deserve to be happy, Philip. Everything happens for a reason.’ And then he slowly drifted to sleep. And he just… never woke up again.”

Dan feels a tear roll down his cheek. Phil is crying again, though this time it isn’t silent. His breathing is erratic and his heaving sobs echo across the sun terrace. Dan rushes to his side and pulls him into a hug, and Phil begins sobbing into his shirt.

Dan holds Phil in his arms for what feels like hours. And he doesn’t mind at all. He can tell it's something Phil had wanted to say for a while, maybe even get off of his chest, and he wonders how much of what Phil had told him has been said to him only. It certainly seems as if Martyn doesn’t know the full story and all the ins and outs, based on the Skype call Dan had with him, and Phil doesn’t seem the open type to tell his life story to anyone that asked.

“One thing came from it all, though,” Phil says as he pulls away from Dan’s chest. His voice is raspy due to his crying, and Dan knows it's wrong to find it so damn attractive, so he didn’t say so. “My grandad was right.”

“He was, he was a very wise man. You do deserve to be happy, I hope one day you genuinely believe it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What do you mean, then?” Dan can’t mask his confusion.

Phil takes Dan’s hand. “Everything does happen for a reason, like he said. It’s you, you’re the reason.”

And then Dan kisses him. With as much passion as he can muster.

“I love you.” Dan whispers when they break apart, both sets of eyes glassy once more.

And he's adamant he's ever spoken truer words in his lifetime.


	20. Twenty.

The tropical sun had nearly completed its transition into milky moonlight when Dan’s eyes opened.

The duvet was pooled around his waist, his bare skin exposed to the gentle breeze from the air conditioner (that, shockingly, they still hadn’t switched off). As an alternative to pinching himself to believe it wasn’t a dream, he slowly turned over as to not cause the mattress springs to twang, and a smile crept onto his lips as his gaze fell upon the various articles of clothing strewn carelessly on the floor.

It happened.

“I feel like I ask this every time I open my eyes, but what time is it?” came the soft, sleep-laced voice from beside him.

Dan turned back around and shrugged. “Nearly night by the looks of it, I don’t really care.”

Phil’s eyes were still closed, but he smiled and stretched out his arms. “It’s nice to not have to care for once.”

“Yeah,” Dan agreed as he settled back down, his face mere centimetres from Phil’s. “It is.”

Phil opened his eyes and his smile only grew when he saw the close proximity Dan was to him, and leaned forward to lazily kiss him. Dan’s stomach still flipped with glee, though he knew it definitely shouldn’t by now.

“You’re so pretty” Phil stated, resting his hand on Dan’s jaw.

The random timing of it caused Dan to laugh.

“Why thank you, though I doubt I’m the prettier one in this marriage.”

Dan was sure he noticed Phil’s eyes light up upon hearing the word marriage, though he couldn’t be entirely sure it wasn’t just wishful thinking.

“Marriage,” Phil toyed the word around, and Dan found himself holding his breath for some reason. “I like that I’m married to you.”

“You do?” a part of Dan’s brain still refused to let him believe it.

“Yep,” Phil rolled on top of him (with grunts of discomfort from them both at first until Phil found a position that didn’t have his knees digging into Dan, to name but one of the initial unpleasantries). “It means you’re mine, and I like that a lot” his voice was little more than a whisper, and he leaned down to kiss Dan deeply. Not that Dan minded one bit. He wrapped his arms around Phil’s torso as the makeout continued, and he felt deliriously giddy.

“Thank you for marrying me” Dan said as they broke apart, knowing full well it wasn’t the first nor would it be the last time he’d said those exact words.

Phil grinned and kissed him again. “Thank you for marrying _me.”_

“The pleasure was all mine.”

Dan knew his past self from a year ago would’ve scoffed at him. For being so wrapped up in another person and so grossly happy all the time, he would’ve said it was unrealistic and he was just setting himself up for failure. Hell, he considered dropping out of the show throughout the first couple of weeks of filming for that very reason.

But along came Phil, and along came a whole new mindset and outlook on life. Love didn’t have to be so daunting and so unattainable when you had the right person beside you, and Dan was certain he finally had that. He was lucky, and reminded himself so every day.

Phil rolled off of him with a soft thud back onto the mattress. “Do you think people will remember us from the show?”

“What do you mean?”

Phil shrugged. “I don’t know, like, do you think one day we could be walking down the street and someone comes up and says something like ‘hey aren’t you those guys who got married on tv the first time you saw each other’?”

Dan pondered the thought. He was only a measly book editor, he was always a helping hand for other people getting recognised, the idea of anyone knowing _him_ was weird to say the least. The possibility of someone recognising him in the street was something he just couldn’t imagine.

“Maybe,” he answered with a shrug of his own, “But I’m sure there are couples that made a bigger impression on the show than we will have.”

“I don’t know,” Phil sang, “We might’ve made history by being the first couple not to have consummated the marriage on the first night!”

“We’re definitely not the first” Dan laughed, and Phil pressed a finger to Dan’s lips.

“Shhhh,” he insisted, “I said might’ve. Either way, I’ll always remember us, even if nobody else does.”

“You’ll have no choice but to remember us when you wake up to my face every morning” Dan raised an eyebrow, and Phil nodded with a wide grin.

“I know, isn’t it great?”

\--

Phil was on the phone to his parents out on the balcony whilst Dan was checking his emails, and one from a company he’d worked with a large amount of times in the past stuck out, as it was highlighted as important and urgent.

_Mr. Howell;_

_We hope you’re doing well and successfully. We write to you today with an exciting proposition!_

_As you have gifted your editing services to us many times in the past and have helped many an up-and-coming author with getting the recognition they deserve, we would like to offer you the chance to work exclusively with one of our newest rising stars, as she prepares to release her debut novel._

_Her short stories have proven extremely popular with various key demographics in the past, and we are certain that having her tied to your professional record will be nothing but beneficial to you in your future endeavours._

_Please reply as soon as you can if you are at all interested, and we can provide more information and schedule your first of many meetings._

_\- Julienne Draper, on behalf of LuckyStar Publishing House ltd._

Dan chewed the inside of his cheek as he read the email over and over. LuckyStar always paid well and had rarely sent him anything less than fantastic, so he had no reason to doubt them. There was just something about how vague the message was that triggered a wisp of doubt in the back of his mind.

“You look as if you have the weight of the world on your mind” Phil commented as he sat beside Dan on the bed. He’d returned back at some point whilst Dan was lost in his own thoughts.

“Read this” Dan said simply whilst squeezing the bridge of his nose, for some reason he couldn’t completely commit himself to wanting to take on the job.

Phil began massaging Dan’s shoulders gently as he read through the email, and surprisingly it did ease Dan slightly.

“Sounds promising. Are you going to take it?”

Dan pressed his lips together. “I’m not sure. Something about how vague it is puts me off a bit.” He turned to look at Phil. “What do you think?”

“I think you should do whatever you feel comfortable with. I’ll support you either way.”

Dan sighed. “And what do you _really_ think, now that you’ve said the generic supportive spouse thing?”

Phil laughed. “There’s no harm just going for the first meeting, right?”

Dan nodded. Somehow that was all the persuasion he needed.

“You’re right” he agreed, and Phil smiled. “Besides, there’s another positive that could come of it, as well as what they said in the email.”

Phil tipped his head to the side slightly. “What’s that?”

Dan couldn’t fight the grin from taking over his face. “This would be the first time I’d be credited as Daniel Howell-Lester.”

In a surprising reaction, Phil tackled him down onto the mattress and began peppering kisses to every inch of skin he could reach, and Dan could do nothing for laughing. He was revelling in every moment he had with Phil, his own private addiction.

He’d never thought he’d experience ‘the honeymoon phase’, but it was infinitely greater than he ever could’ve comprehended. Phil was infinitely greater than he ever could’ve comprehended. In more ways than one.

As Phil’s lips finally made his way to Dan’s after trailing butterfly kisses down his jaw and neck, Dan was ready to melt into a puddle of his own emotions. But Phil pulled away far too quickly, and rested his elbows on the mattress either side of Dan’s body.

“So, dinner? Drinks on the terrace? What are you feeling tonight?” he asked, still smiling at how much of a wreck he’d made Dan.

“Can we not just do this more?” Dan stuck out his bottom lip in hopes it would bring Phil around more to his way of thinking, but it failed when Phil shook his head and smirked.

“My parents paid all this money for us to fly out to this beautiful country and all you want to do is stay in the hotel room and makeout?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do” Dan replied stubbornly, and Phil kissed him lightly before rolling over to brace for standing up.

“Well you’re in shit street then, buddy, because we’re moving. We’ll just get some food and then see where the night takes us, yeah?” Phil held out his hand and wiggled it a little to persuade Dan to get up too. “It’s not hard, I promise.”

“I know something else that isn’t hard” Dan mumbled as he reluctantly stood up, and took Phil’s hand.

“Finally the beast arises,” Phil joked, “But seriously, I’m getting hungry so let’s go. Ready for some fine luxury cuisine, husband?”

Again, Dan felt ready to melt when Phil called him husband. On one hand he wished that he would get over the schoolgirl reactions he still had, but on the other he hoped they never left him. He secretly loved all the entirely cliché aspects – the racing heart, the flipping stomach, everything.

Most of all he adored the honeymoon phase, the can’t keep their hands off of each other phase, the frequent exchange of I love you’s phase. A part of him doubted it’d be a phase, though, he doubted he’d ever be able to control the urges he’s been getting around Phil since shortly after they married.

“Husband, huh?” Dan repeated, and he squeezed Phil’s hand as the smile once again took pride of place. “Yeah, that one never gets old.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't explain to you how fun this was to write, i love fluff, i love this au version of dan and phil i love their marriage i just AH 
> 
> anyway, the day i post this is my birthday which is exciting! but also the day after i post this is the day i go on holiday for ten days so there won't be any chapters until after i get back, which is why i wrote and posted this one for you so it's less of a wait since the last chapter :)
> 
> as always, please let me know what you thought in a comment below and share the fic around if you're enjoying it (subscribe to get email notifications when i update it or subscribe to my profile to get notified when i post anything, chapters and oneshots!), and thank you so much for your ongoing support! i'm still overwhelmed daily by the support this fic has received since literally the first chapter! i adore this concept and i'm so glad that so many of you are dedicated to it too and love the storyline just as much as i do!
> 
> ... or at least you do up until now
> 
> ... bye for now little chums 
> 
> ;)


	21. Twenty-One.

They decide to sample the nightlife.

They aren’t staying in a party central part of the country, it's a family-friendly place, which suits them both down to the ground. Not that Dan wouldn’t mind getting hammered and grinding on Phil in a nightclub. Not that he’d ever say so, either. 

A bar sits opposite the hotel, hosting live entertainment.

“Want to try here?” Phil asks, turning to face Dan.

“Sure,” Dan shrugs, and Phil smiles.

They both look around for a table, but as the entertainment is due to start in just a few minutes, the place is packed out.

“We really should’ve come earlier.” Phil notes, and Dan takes a step forward and brushes his fingers down Phil’s arm until their hands meet and link loosely.

“We were a bit pre-occupied coming somewhere else,” Dan whispers, and watches with a smirk as the blush creeps onto Phil’s cheeks.

Phil doesn’t say anything in response, but squeezes Dan’s hand lightly.

Then, a family near the back of the bar stand up and begin walking out, and Dan makes a bee-line for their table. He smiles at the father of the group as he passes, and the father returns it. He's carrying a sleeping toddler in his arms, and as Dan turns to check Phil is following him, he notices Phil’s stare linger a little too long on the family as they leave.

“You okay?” Dan asks as they settle into their seats.

“Fine,” Phil answers far too quickly, and presses a quick kiss to Dan’s cheek.

Before Dan can question further, a waiter appears at their table and asks if they’d like to see the drinks menu.

Phil shakes his head and reels off the name of a cocktail he apparently has memorised, and Dan, not knowing any, just asks for the same. The waiter nods and scurries off to get another table’s orders, leaving them alone once again.

Dan can’t resist himself.

“Was one cock not good enough for you tonight?”

Phil turns to him and grins. “I just need one with a little more power and kick to it, my love.”

Dan pouts and Phil laughs.

He's about to say something in response, but is cut off by the feedback from the microphone onstage, and a man in a crisp white shirt and suspenders steps up. Sunglasses shield his eyes from the harsh spotlight on the ceiling of the bar.

With no introduction, he launches straight into the first song, and some drunker bargoers are up and dancing immediately.

“This is going to be my kind of night,” Phil says, already swaying along with the music.

“It’s no surprise given that every song he’s going to do is old, like you.” Dan sticks out his tongue, and Phil throws a beermat at him, hitting Dan squarely in the forehead.

“And you’re my trophy husband, are you?” Phil asks, taking a break from mouthing along with the words.

“That’s right,” Dan flashes him a smile that was all teeth, and Phil smiles and rested his hand atop Dan’s on the table.

Their drinks arrive soon after, to Dan’s relief it's one he really likes the taste of. They watch the performer for a couple more songs – Phil is getting more into his chair-dancing and swaying with every one – until Dan clasps his hand on Phil’s shoulder.

“Go up there and dance, dork,” he nods towards the dancefloor in front of the stage, which is already heavily populated.

“Will you come with me?”

Dan shakes his head. “One, someone needs to stay here to man the table. Two, I don’t dance.”

Phil presses his lips together. “Can’t dance or won’t dance?”

Dan reaches forward to ruffle Phil’s hair. “All of the above.”

“Danny.” Phil drags out the vowel sound and sticks out his bottom lip.

“Excuse me,” a woman from the table beside theirs turns around, “I’ll go up with you if you want, love. My husband and daughter don’t want to go up with me!”

“See, Phil,” Dan smiles at his husband, “Things are looking up already.”

Phil sticks out his tongue at Dan before turning to the woman, and nods.

“What are we waiting for?” he stands up and holds out his arm, to which the woman laughs and takes it, and they head off to the dancefloor.

Just before they're out of earshot, Phil turns around. “I hate you!” he calls (in the most affectionate tone), and Dan blows him a kiss.

Dan then turns to the woman’s family, and he shares a laugh with the woman’s husband as they both look towards the dancefloor to where his wife is dancing crazily, and Phil seems to be doing his own thing too.

“You more reserved too, mate?” he asks, and Dan nods.

“Sometimes it’s a curse,” Dan shrugged, and the man holds up his pint glass.

“I’ll drink to that!”

They both do.

His teenage daughter turns to watch her mother for a few seconds, then swiftly turns back around and focuses her attention back on her phone, tapping quickly and wildly. “So fucking embarrassing,” she mumbles, and her father laughs at her.

“She’s allowed to have fun too, Diana.” He laughs as she rolls her eyes.

Dan then looks back over to the dancefloor, and he can’t help but smile at seeing how happy Phil looks, dancing with everyone as the songs keep coming. Occasionally he’ll meet Dan’s gaze and try and get him to join him up there, but Dan always shakes his head and blows him a kiss, it becomes a little tradition almost.

Dan notices Phil is particularly chatty with the woman from the next table over, and they’ll often giggle at something the other said as they dance with one another, it's nice to see.

When they return, the woman is excitedly chatting with her husband and daughter (who is still trying to pretend her mother doesn’t exist, out of embarrassment), and Phil sits down with a content sigh.

“Feel better for that, dance machine?” Dan asks, and Phil grins and nods, then places his hand on Dan’s cheek and kisses him.

“Thank you,” he says as they break apart.

“I didn’t do anything, but I’ll take the thanks if they come in the form of kisses,” Dan replies as he takes a sip of his cocktail.

“You did, you convinced me to go up there! And I had a great time, so thank you.”

Dan leans in close. “Technically, it was your friend here that convinced you. But it was nice to see you up there having fun with people your own age for once.”

Phil swats Dan’s arm playfully. “Stop making me sound old! You’re not much younger than me!”

Dan raises an eyebrow. “But still young enough for me to be able to safely make the age gap joke.”

Phil takes a sip of his drink and narrows his eyes in a jokey fashion.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to slow things down for a little while,” the performer announces between gulps of his water. “I have a couple of requests here from…” he looks down at the paper in his hand. “Helen! Where are you, Helen?"

The woman immediately jumps up and starts flailing her arms around. Diana runs off to the bathrooms to avoid being embarrassed any further (as she tells her father), and Helen’s husband laughs and looks on at his wife fondly.

“Hi, Helen. How are you tonight?” the performer asks, clearly taking the requests as his cue for a well-earned intermission.

“Good!” Helen shouts across the bar to him. She's still waving her arms around.

“How many have you had tonight, Helen? Getting a little merry on your holidays are you?” he jokes.

“Is that not what holidays are for?” Helen shouts, and a large number of bargoers cheer, Dan and Phil included.

“Indeed they are! So I’m going to get started on your requests, time to chill things down!” the performer then starts on a slow ballad type song, and people immediately start flooding back to the dancefloor.

“Aren’t you going back up there?” Dan asks, and Phil shakes his head.

“Think I’m going to stay here with you, be stubborn as well.”

“I resent that.”

Phil turns to face him and smiled. “You _rep_ resent that.”

Dan tries to compose himself, but he laughs anyway. “That was absolutely awful. Dork.”

Phil rests his hand atop Dan’s again and they watch other people dance the night away.

“Onto Helen’s second request!” the performer announces, “I’m told to dedicate this one to a Dan and Phil, who are apparently on their Honeymoon? Where are the lovebirds?” he asks, scanning through the crowd.

“They’re here!” Helen is flailing her arms again, though this time through enthusiastically pointing at the table next to hers, pointing down at Dan and Phil’s heads.

As is to be expected, the majority of the bar turns to look at the Honeymooners. Dan feels exposed, vulnerable almost, being put (literally) under the spotlight with no warning. But Phil jumps up and pulls Dan up with him, and they both smile towards the stage.

“You make a lovely couple, and I wish you every happiness.” The performer smiles back at them, “And this song is for you, as well as every other married couple that may be with us tonight. I invite you all to join me on the dancefloor here.”

Helen manages to, within a shockingly short period of time, drag her husband up out of his seat, and is leading him towards the dancefloor, leaving a positively mortified Diana at their table.

“Danny, please dance with me?” Phil holds out his hand, and Dan bites his lip.

He weighs the pros and cons out in his mind quickly. He can’t dance, he has two left feet at the best of times. But then again it isn’t as if he's ever going to see these people again…

“Can you please watch our table too?” Dan asks Diana, who nods wordlessly, clearly still mortified by the sight of her parents slow dancing on the dancefloor.

Phil squeezes Dan’s hand as they make their way over too, and they take their place more to the side of the dancefloor.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Phil,” Dan admits, and Phil smiles, wrapping his arms around Dan’s neck.

“Put your arms around my waist and then just go with what feels right."

And so Dan does.

They begin swaying slowly, and Dan is shocked at how natural it feels. He doesn’t feel like he's making a complete ass of himself either, which is a bonus.

“In for a penny, in for a pound, right mate?” Helen’s husband calls over to Dan from the middle of the dancefloor, and Dan laughs and nods.

When Dan is fully focused back on Phil, Phil is already looking back at him with those big, blue (with flecks of green and yellow, as Dan has silently observed) eyes of his.

“Did you ever do this with Amber?” the words leave his lips before his brain even register he thought of them.

Phil shakes his head. “Never.”

“Did you ever feel, you know, like this?” he feels stupid asking. Of course Phil was in love with Amber, they were engaged to be-

“No,” Phil replies, maintaining Dan’s gaze. “Never like this.”

And then they're kissing, in front of the whole bar. And Dan doesn’t care at all. He's wrapped up in their dancing, the music and most importantly Phil himself, and he feels so blissfully happy and carefree that he's convinced his alarm will go off any second and he’ll wake up back in his homophobic hometown, as a terrified closeted teenager.

But it doesn’t, the song keeps going and Phil rests his head in the crook of Dan’s neck (the height difference is _just_ enough) and presses a soft kiss to the skin there.

As the song draws to a close and the dancing couples break apart to applaud with the rest of the bargoers, Dan being genuinely worried he’ll burst into tears any second, just because he was so happy.

The performer turns to the two of them.

“For Dan and Phil,” he says again, and the whole bar erupts in applause once again. “I hope you have a lovely Honeymoon and a beautiful life together.”

“Thank you,” they say synchronously, and the performer smiles before putting the microphone back into the stand and standing at the front of the stage once again and launching into a fast-paced song.

Dan and Phil head back to their table, Helen and her husband have already arrived back at theirs. Diana is showing her father the video she’d taken of her parents dancing, and laughing at how apparently stupid he looked whilst doing it.

“Did you do that?” Dan asks Helen, and she beams at him and nods.

“Phil asked me to, but it was my pleasure!”

Dan then hugs her, without even thinking if she’ll be okay with it, thankfully she is, and hugs him back.

“You two are so bloody cute together, I can’t handle it!” she exclaims, clasping her hands under her chin. “And by the way, misery guts, you can dance!”

“I just had a wonderful partner,” Dan shrugs, and Phil mimes gagging behind him, to which Dan flips him off.

As the final song draws to a close, the performer announces that karaoke will be happening until the bar closes in a few hours’ time (it's already two in the morning, time has passed quickly).

They watch as a karaoke machine is carried onstage.

“Phil! Me and you?” Helen spins around in her seat and grins excitedly.

Phil shakes his head rapidly. “No no, dancing is one thing, but singing is another. No way!”

“Dan?” she doesn’t lose any of her excitement.

Phil turns to look at Dan too, full of curiosity.

Dan downs the rest of his drink and rests the glass back on the table. “You know what, fuck it. Let’s do it.”

Helen squeals and runs towards the stage to write their names down.

“For fuck’s sake.” Diana mumbles. Her father leans in close to say something to her, something that leaves Diana scowling, so Dan doesn’t presume it's anything lighthearted.

“Are you really going to do this?” Phil asks, and Dan smiles at him.

“Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Can I film it? I’m sure Ebony and Nick will kill me if I don’t.”

“You most certainly can not.”

Phil shrugs and sits back in his seat, and then nods in the direction of the stage, where Helen is waving Dan over.

“Good luck, superstar,” Phil says with a small laugh, and Dan leans in to kiss him softly before standing up from his seat and heading over to Helen.

“Are you ready for this?” she asks, and Dan shakes his head.

“Not at all, but I guess that’s the best time to do it, plus I think the half glass of alcohol I just chugged should be coming into effect any minute so let’s get cracking.”

“As you wish” Helen nudges his shoulder playfully and nods to the bar employee who is in charge of managing the karaoke.

Helen has chosen _I Will Always Love You_ for them to sing, Dan only notices the title flashing on the screen at the very last second before the lyrics begin rolling.

“This goes out to our husbands!” Helen exclaims into the microphone, and some bargoers cheer.

Helen very much takes lead vocals and Dan just chips in every so often. It doesn’t help that he looks over to Phil a few seconds into the song, and Phil is stood with his phone in the air, filming the whole thing.

He mouths  _I hate you_ over to Phil, but Phil simply blows him a kiss, the way that Dan had to him whilst he was dancing earlier in the night. At least Phil will get infinite brownie points from Ebony and Nick when he inevitably shows it to them, as well as anyone else he decides to show.

The drunken bargoers sing along, an orchestra of out-of-tune high notes, and Dan is sure it should be against the law to be having this much fun. He notices Phil mouthing along with the lyrics too, as well as Helen’s husband. Even Diana has put her phone down to watch.

Once the song ends, they receive thunderous applause. Dan runs into Phil’s already outstretched arms back at their table.

“You did so well!” Phil compliments, and Dan squeezes him tighter.

“Want to head back to the hotel?” he asks, and Dan nods into his chest. “Okay.”

After a long goodbye with Helen and her family (with lots of hugs from both her and her husband and a hesitant wave from Diana) they head back across the street to their hotel, and trudge up to their suite.

They don’t bother getting changed, just strip down to their underwear and crawl under the duvet. They're both exhausted beyond belief.

“I can’t believe I did that,” Dan whispers, not entirely sure if Phil is still awake, he could fall asleep shockingly quickly when he was tired enough.

“You did amazing,” Phil replies, and his hand finds Dan’s under the duvet.

“ _You_ did amazing earlier today.”

“Keep it in your pants for two minutes, Casanova,” Phil jokes, followed by a yawn.

“Now I’ve got a taste for it I just can’t be satisfied.” Dan tries his hardest not to yawn, but fails epically.

“I think we’re both going to pass out any second, best not start anything we can’t finish.” Phil yawns again.

“Nobody likes a cocktease, Phil.”

Phil laughs softly. “Goodnight, Dan.”

Dan squeezes Phil’s hand. “Goodnight.”

He feels himself on the brink of a deep sleep, when a voice brings him back for a second.

“Hey, I love you.”

He can’t fight the smile that still manages to fight its way onto his lips despite being half asleep.

“I love you more, Philip Howell-Lester.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO HI GREETINGS
> 
> basically, i did a poll on twitter (follow me @bloggerhowell for constant dnp content and fic related discussion) if one more chapter of fluff would be too much and people seemed to be up for it (i think it was about 78% or something???) so here you go, 3k of pure fluff that i was literally grinning whilst writing, i love this chapter so much and i just couldn't stop writing! though i did edit out like five kissing scenes so um that was a thing, i just really like the balance of tasteful fluff and in your face fluffy fluff in this chapter, i like it a lot
> 
> also if you've never encountered a helen in your life i feel sorry for you because the helen characters are the life and soul of the night. shout out if your name is helen, or if your name isn't helen, shout out to you too, you deserve to feel loved too
> 
> please leave a kudos and comment and share if you liked it/are still enjoying the fic, and please tweet me letting me know what you thought too! <3 
> 
> (i just realised that i'm uploading this later than usual so some of you may be reading this at school/work etc, let me know if you are, it'll make me smile) 
> 
> xx


	22. Twenty-Two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil enjoy the last day of their Honeymoon.

“Wake up!” Dan is abruptly brought back into reality as Phil jumps on him. And not in the way Dan would have preferred.

Phil is already dressed and apparently ready for the day.

“Never do that again.” Dan mumbles and attempts to turn onto his side and snuggle into his pillow, but Phil won’t allow it.

“It’s the last day! Get up already!”

“Last day meaning I’m still on holiday, meaning I’m entitled to a lay-in more than ever. So let me.”

Phil pulls Dan up to a sitting position, and Dan rubs helplessly at his eyes.

“How are you so upbeat after only running on-“ he picks up his phone to check the time, “Five hours’ sleep?”

“Five hours is plenty of time!” Phil replies, “And besides, it’s all the more time you can spend with me!”

Dan reaches forward to push Phil backwards, and they both laugh as he falls back onto the mattress. “I was with you in my dream, dork. Dream Phil gives me what I want.”

Phil laughs again, and reaches out his arm to stroke Dan’s cheek.

“Peace and silence?”

“Only in the mornings. He knows his way around a bed when he needs to” Dan smiles as Phil pouts.

“He learned from the best, that’s why.”

“Or did I dream up everything I wish you’d be?” Dan taps a finger to his chin. “Maybe we’ll never know.”

“Oh, you’ll know. When the time comes around again, you’ll know.”

“That sounds ominous…”

Phil sits back up and grins. He then leans forward and presses a kiss to Dan’s nose. “Good.”

He pulls on Dan’s arm to try and get him to sit up too. “I want to get food, come on and get up!”

“The more you tell me to get up the more I just want to stay here to spite you.”

Phil rolls his eyes and stands up from the bed and walks over to the door, where their towels are folded ready to secure a sunbed down by the pool. At least Phil’s plans are obvious, nothing too taxing for their last day.

“Fine, you stay here then, and I’ll get a sunbed and then get breakfast alone,” he picks up his towel and their beach bag, “And when they ask me, ‘oh Mister Howell-Lester, whatever happened to your husband?’ I’ll sigh and tell them that I killed him because his lazy ass refused to spend any time with me.”

Dan blinks a couple of times, though Phil’s expression remains deadpan.

“That’s…. sort of dark.”

“Good.”

And then Phil is gone.

Immediately, Dan scrambles out of bed and runs around the room looking for any random items of clothing that vaguely resemble an acceptable outfit, tripping over three shoes in the process.

Five minutes later, he has his towel in hand and is pressing the lift button a thousand times, urging it to come faster.

Phil only wanted a nice relaxed final day for the two of them, but Dan just had to push him too far and carry on a lacklustre joke that lost its spark after the first time.

When he eventually makes it onto the pool deck he ignores the wet floor signs and sprints over to the pool, and begins scouring the area for his husband.

If he were married to anyone else it might have been a more difficult task, but thankfully Phil is taller than literally everyone else that is out reserving sunbeds, so he manages to spot him immediately and make his way over, and drops his towel on the sunbed beside Phil’s.

“You made it, did you?” Phil asks as he straightens out his towel and drapes it over his sunbed and places the beach bag on top of it to secure it.

“I’m sorry,” Dan makes his voice as small as possible. “Do you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Phil replies, “You spend your last day how you want to spend it, and I’ll spend it how I want to spend it, simple as.”

Dan sighs and begins unrolling his own towel and fixing it to the sunbed. Phil waits for him, and together they walk over to the breakfast bar, where many holidaymakers are already feasting.

“I really didn’t know that this would mean so much to you, Phil, and I’m so sorry, I really am. You know sometimes I just don’t know when to end a joke and-“ he cuts himself off as Phil begins laughing. “You fucking asshole.”

“It got you out of bed, didn’t it?” Phil holds up his hands, and Dan shoves him.

“That wasn’t funny, I thought you were legitimately pissed off with me! I probably have about five bruises on my legs from where I tripped over stuff because I was trying to get dressed quicker so I could come and find you to apologise!”

This only fuels Phil’s laughter, and Dan shoves him again.

\--

“Good morning!” a chirpy woman stands in front of their sunbeds around an hour later, where they're relaxing and letting their breakfast settle.

“Barely.” Phil mumbles, and Dan hits his arm lightly and smiled at the woman.

“Good morning!”

The woman waves a clipboard around. “I’m the hotel’s entertainment co-ordinator, can I interest you guys in a game of pool volleyball?”

Dan snorts, and it's Phil’s turn to hit Dan lightly on the arm.

“Oh, we’re really not the sporty type, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be!” the woman insists, “It’s not competitive, really, just a bunch of families all having fun together!”

“We’ll pass, thank you,” Phil smiles, and the woman smiles back at him.

“No problem, have a lovely rest of your day!”

The woman then leaves to try and enlist a family over on some nearby sunbeds, and Dan takes his sunglasses off. “I wouldn’t have hated seeing the sight of you in dripping wet skin-tight swim shorts.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Phil turns to face him. “Is that all you think about?”

Dan shrugs. “Can’t exactly blame me, look at you.”

“I’m not going to argue with the compliments.” Phil sings, and Dan throws a balled up napkin at him.

“Are you not going to say it back?”

Phil nudges his sunglasses down his nose, and looks over at Dan. He's smirking. “Nah, I’m good.”

Dan gasps and places his hand to his chest. “You fucking asshole.”

Phil turns his attention back to his book. “That’s wishful thinking, my love.”

He casts a side glance towards Dan, who quickly places his sunglasses back on and puts his earphones back in, his cheeks flushing red. Phil’s smirk grows.

\--

“So what are we going to do tonight?” Dan asks as they return from the pool in the late afternoon, himself with the tiniest hint of a tan from a whole day of sun exposure, whereas Phil has stayed under the umbrella safely in the shade, despite Dan trying to coax him out.

“What do you want to do? Go sing some more karaoke?” Phil teases, and Dan places his hands on his hips.

“I did that for _you_!”

Phil walks over, cups his hands around Dan’s face and kisses him softly. “And you rocked the house. I’m sure Nick and Ebony will agree.”

“You are not showing them that, I forbid it.”

Phil then places his hands over his ears. “Can’t hear you! I chose not to hear that!”

“I bet you’d hear me if I said I wanted round two…” Dan says, and waits for Phil’s reaction, a reaction that never comes, as Phil still has his hands over his ears.

“Philip Lester!” he shouts.

“Howell-Lester” Phil corrects, and Dan grins.

“Got you to listen to me.” He shoots finger guns at Phil, who rolls his eyes.

“Dork,” Phil tries his hardest to maintain his deadpan poker face, but he breaks out into a laugh.

Dan stands up on the bed then jumps onto Phil’s back, taking the other man by surprise as he struggles to keep hold of the brunet.

“Dan what the fuck!” Phil exclaims, but he's laughing.

“I’m being spontaneous, just roll with it!” Dan replies, and tightens his arms around Phil’s neck.

Phil somehow manages to begin running around the suite, both of them laughing like hyperactive children.

It only lasts for a few minutes, but it's the most fun Dan has had in months, apart from the wedding. And their first time. And the rest of the Honeymoon. So, the most fun he’s had in months that isn’t marriage-related.

Phil gently drops Dan back onto the bed, and then flops down beside him.

“As fun as that was, I don’t think I could manage that again,” Phil says, he's panting slightly. “I’m not as nimble as I once was.”

Dan rests his hand atop Phil’s and squeezes tightly. “I’ll keep that in mind, old man.”

When Phil doesn’t respond, Dan turns to face him, but at that exact second Phil rolls on top of him.

“Why are we making this a regular thing,” Dan says breathlessly, the action taking him by surprise and knocking the wind out of him.

“Oh come on _old man,”_ Phil teases, “It’s fun, it’s Honeymoon-y, deal with the romance.”

“What is romantic about you laying on top of me?”

Phil raises an eyebrow, and Dan feels his cheeks heat up.

“Okay, forget I asked that.”

Phil leans down to kiss him and, when they break apart, pecks him on the lips.

“We should get packing.”

“We’re spending our last night _packing?_ We’re so in touch with this Honeymoon shit, we’ve got it on lock.”

Phil rolls off of him and retrieves their suitcases.

“We have all that stuff from the market to try and fit in too…” Dan recalls, and Phil immediately dashes over to collect the star from the windowsill, and begins nestling it safely in a shirt.

“Hey, what’s the deal with that thing, anyway?” Dan asks, “You seemed to have your heart set on it at the market.”

Phil is silent for a couple of seconds, then begins unwrapping it. “It has symbolism.”

“Symbolism?”

Phil then turns to face him, and bites his lip. Dan can practically feel the atmosphere around them shift.

“You’ll laugh at me.”

Dan sits on the edge of the bed, and pats the space next to him. “Not if it’s important to you.”

Phil walks over and perches on the edge of the bed, and places the star on his lap.

“So it wasn’t just because you found it pretty?”

Phil shrugs. “I mean it is beautiful. But no, I’m a poetic soul, as my mum has always told me. I overthink everything and attach deep meanings to everything.”

Dan simply nods.

Phil sighs and points to the centre of the star. “So you see the dark blue?”

Dan nods again.

“That’s,” he pauses for a second, “That’s how I feel the majority of the time. Because of Amber. You get what I mean by that?”

Dan bites the inside of his cheek. He wants to pull Phil into a hug, he wants to question if he isn’t at all happier now, but he settles for a nod.

Phil moves his finger over to one of the pastel yellow-tipped edges, and places the pad of his finger on the point.

“And this is you.”

“What do you mean?”

Phil turns to face him. “What do you think it means?”

“I’ve been wrong about deep shit like this before, so…”

Phil smiles. “You honestly have no idea how much you mean to me, do you?”

“Not until you tell me.”

Phil shuffles over slightly to rest his head on Dan’s shoulder. “I’m waiting until I can find the right words.”

\--

“So how has your Honeymoon been?” Dan asks, his head resting gently on Phil’s chest as Phil begins to slowly run his fingers through Dan’s curls.

“All the better because it’s you I’m here with,” Phil replies, and leans down to press a kiss to Dan’s forehead. “We’re still no closer to finishing packing though, I knew we’d get distracted.”

Dan grins up at him. “People expect it, it’s what Honeymoon suites are made for.”

“And it would be a shame to have disappointed the Honeymoon gods.”

Dan laughs. “Exactly, I knew we were on the same page.”

“I don’t want to ever get out of this bed and go back to the airport and return to real life.”

“Could we afford to live here forever?”

“I doubt it, and I don’t think my parents would react all too nicely if I asked them.”

Dan sighs dramatically. “Guess we actually have to go home tomorrow then.”

“What do you mean tomorrow?” Phil reaches to grab his phone from the bedside table and shows Dan the time, which reads as just past two in the morning. “We leave in a few hours.”

“Fuck we need to sleep, finish packing _and_ eat. We’re fucked.”

“You say ‘we’re fucked’ as if it’s a negative. I feel satisfied and content.”

Dan lifts his arm to flick Phil gently on the forehead.  “And you say I’m the one who always has sex on the brain.”

Phil winks at him. “Goodnight, Dan.”

“Goodnight, dork. I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so basically i did a poll on twitter a while ago (follow me @bloggerhowell if you don't already hashtag lame spon) if this chapter should be their last day of the honeymoon or travelling home, and an overwhelming percentage of you wanted more honeymoon fluff so this is what you voted for i hope you liked it
> 
> also sorry i've been away from this fic for a while, basically i've gone through an inspiration draught for it, but hopefully i'm past it now and i'm back. since i've been gone i have started a new chaptered fic, youtuber big brother, as well as a long oneshot called Chance, so check those out if you'd at all like to :)
> 
> AND finally you know the meaning behind the star! they're such cuties i love them
> 
> as always, leave a kudos and comment letting me know what you thought and share the fic with anyone you think might like it, and thank you for your support and waiting for this chapter so patiently! 
> 
> xx


	23. Twenty-Three.

_Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now making our descent into London Heathrow, please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. Cabin crew prepare for landing._

“Here’s the part where our ears pop,” Phil says, and Dan nods.

“Way ahead of you.” he replies, putting a finger in both of his ears in preparation.

Phil laughs and does the same thing.

They look across the aisle and see a boy who looks around five years old doing the same thing, and is looking back at them with amusement. They laugh it off and close their eyes until they hit the runway.

After the twenty-minute queue to get off the plane, they breathe in the English air they’ve been deprived of for oh so long, and grin at each other.

“Last time we were here you were too scared to even hold my hand properly, never mind kiss me,” Dan teases, poking Phil’s chest.

“Shut up, we weren’t long since married!”

Dan rolls his eyes. “We were married long enough. You were just too scared.”

“It’s a two way street!”

“You keep telling yourself that, Lester.”

Dan then speeds up his pace and hurries into the airport, and Phil hunches up his backpack strap on his shoulder and sets off after him.

“Howell-Lester!” he shouts, and Dan turns on his heel to smile at him.

“We really do just take any opportunity we can to correct each other on that, don’t we?”

Phil shrugs. “It sounds nice, rolls off the tongue.”

“We’re also just the gross Honeymoon couple who enjoys doing cliché shit like that.”

Phil pouts. “I prefer my explanation.”

Dan takes his hand and smiles. “I do too.”

\--

Surprisingly, they aren’t waiting long at baggage claim. They manage to snag a place near the front of the conveyer belt, and their cases are within the first twenty sent out, so they're out into the arrivals tunnels much quicker than they thought.

When they emerge, they're greeted by the cheers of Phil’s parents, who are holding up a huge ‘welcome home’ banner. Terry is there too, behind his camera, and waves to the couple before the red light shines on the camera.

“I kind of forgot that was going to happen.” Dan whispers in Phil’s ear, and Phil squeezes his hand.

“Let’s just hope we don’t give away what happened last night, I don’t fancy explaining it to my parents nor the thousands of people who may be watching what Terry’s filming.”

Dan nods, and they break apart to hug Phil’s parents. His mother had dropped the banner almost immediately and runs over to them, and gathers them both into a tight hug. His father chuckles and rested the banner on the ground and makes his way over too, and hugs them both in turn.

The gesture makes Dan tear up slightly, to be so accepted quickly when, realistically, the Lesters know literally nothing about him. He supposes the kindheartedness runs in the family.

“I put on my best shirt for this, I knew the camera would be following us here,” Phil’s father tells them, and everyone laughs.

“You look great, dad.” Phil rolls his eyes, but he's smiling nonetheless.

“So how was it?” his mother asks, taking both Dan and Phil’s arms and beginning to head towards the entrance/exit of the airport.

“Where do you want me to begin?” Phil replies, and Dan glares at him pleadingly and shakes his head rapidly, but Phil simply blows a kiss at him and launches back into conversation with his mother.

\--

“It’ll be nice to be home, won’t it?” Phil’s father hands over the last of their cases from the car and smiles.

“Not that I didn’t enjoy the luxury hotel, which, by the way, thank you so fucking much for,” Dan pauses, and Phil’s parents smile and wave his comment off, “But you can never beat the feeling of your own bed, can you?”

This prompts Phil to snigger, and Dan glares at him again with wide eyes.

“You two go in and get settled, I’ll put the kettle on.” His mother drops their house keys into Dan’s palm (they’d given most valuable items to Phil’s parents for safekeeping whilst they were away).

Dan and Phil start up the front path, and Dan nudges Phil’s arm.

“Why do you want your parents to know about our sex life so badly?”

Phil laughs. “I don’t, it’s your mind taking it there. If you think, none of their questions or my answers were implying it.”

He then jogs a few steps ahead of Dan and stops him in his tracks, and holds out his hand.

“I hate you,” Dan says as he hands Phil the keys, and Phil grins.

“So you’ve said, funny way of showing it though.”

Dan doesn’t reply, just tries his hardest not to blush. And fails.

_“Surprise!”_

The keys go tumbling to the ground the second the door unlocks, and Dan and Phil’s nearest and dearest are crowded in the hallway.

“Christ.” Dan grips onto the doorframe and has his other hand over his heart, and waits for his breathing to steady.

Phil immediately begins hugging everyone, seemingly not as startled as Dan. A few seconds later Nick and Ebony, who are near the front of the group, make their way over to Dan.

“You couldn’t have fucking warned me?” he asks, and his friends laugh.

“Kind of ruins the idea of a surprise, don’t you think?” Nick places a finger to his chin, and Dan leans forward to flick his friend in the forehead.

“And you thought you wouldn’t have to deal with us for at least another day.” Ebony ruffles Dan’s hair, and he swats her hand away.

“Not so much thought as it was hoped.”

Ebony tuts, and pulls him into a hug.

“It’s good to see you,” she says, a far different tone of voice from her joke earlier. “But you _totally_ did it last night, didn’t you?”

She steps back and cups her hands over her mouth, and Nick raises an eyebrow.

Yeah, Dan really should’ve made time to shower before they left the hotel.

“Shut up!” Dan presses a finger to his lips, and hugs the various people who are now almost queueing to greet him after already hugging Phil.

Once everyone has been greeted and are congregating around the bottom floor of the house, Dan is trying his hardest to avoid his best friends, who are adamant for answers.

He stays with his grandparents and brother, making conversation with them, knowing Nick and Ebony won’t interrupt if he did so. He isn’t too sure where Phil is, probably running around fetching everyone drinks and making sure everyone is having a good time, he's a natural born people pleaser.

“Not that I want to know the intimate details _for the love of god,”_ Harvey takes a sip of his beer, “But did you have fun?”

Dan dips his head and wills himself not to blush. He also can’t fight the obnoxious smile growing on his lips. It's happening whenever someone asks about the Honeymoon.

“I did.” The simple response is the most he can manage without babbling.

“Did you get me anything?”

“Harvey.” Their grandparents scold him at the same time, and Harvey shrugs.

Dan knew there was something they forgot to do. The market was the perfect opportunity, but he was so wrapped up in treating Phil to whatever he wanted that he’d forgotten about literally everyone else.

There are various cameramen wandering around the party, filming the guests, and Dan wonders if the footage would ever make the show.

When he finally catches sight of Terry, the older man mouths ‘find Phil’, to which Dan nods.

He then looks around the room, searching, and Terry nods in the general direction behind him. Dan excuses himself and weaves through the crowd of guests, Terry following close behind, filming the journey.

Finally he finds Phil in the kitchen, in conversation with Dodie and Ebony.

“Uh _yes._ Obviously!” Ebony says just as Dan approaches.

He rests a hand on Phil’s arm as he narrows his eyes at his best friend.

“I only heard three words and I already feel attacked.”

Ebony stifles a laugh behind her hand. “It’s okay, Dan. No matter how awkward you are, I will always love you.”

Phil and Dodie burst into laughter.

“Phil!” Dan swats his husband’s arm, and Phil shrugs.

“What? It’s not as if I showed her!”

“Yet.” Dodie adds with a smile, before she and Ebony head back into the living room, and Phil turns to face Dan.

“I really didn’t show them.” He sticks out his bottom lip and takes Dan’s hands in his own.

“Why did Dodie say yet?”

Phil presses his lips together. His eyes have a glimmer of mischief about them.

“Phil, no. Please no.”

But Phil simply leans in and kisses him softly, and squeezes his hands before heading into the living room himself.

Dan turns and watches him leave, and runs his hands over his face.

“What’s happening?” Terry asks as he focused the camera lens.

“Make the most of this bit of footage, it’ll be the last you get before I die of embarrassment or cringing, whichever comes first.”

Terry clearly has no idea what Dan is talking about (understandably) but smiles sympathetically anyway. “If you don’t mind me saying… that’s quite a change from how you both were before you left.”

“What do you mean?”

He knows exactly what Terry meant, he’d said it himself when they got off of the plane.

“Well,” Terry clears his throat, “Before you left you were hesitant to even touch each other’s arms, and… look what happened just now.”

“Oh,” There's that damn smile again, he just can’t fight it. “Yeah. We’re kind of at the next level, now, I guess.”

At that, Terry grins. “I’m happy for you both, I really, really am.”

The fact Terry had been by Dan’s side throughout the entire process of the show makes the statement just that much more heartfelt and sincere. So much so that Dan finds himself bringing Terry in for a hug, and he's sure he feels himself tear up. But he blames it on jet lag.

\--

“Why are you all there?” Dan asks as he enters the living room.

His grandparents and brother, Phil’s parents, Martyn, Nick, Ebony, Louise, Caspar and Dodie are all crowded around the sofa, and Phil is sat in the middle, his phone raised in the air so everyone can see.

Realisation dawns a second later.

“Please no.” He pleads.

“Please yes,” Nick mocks him as he presses the play button, and it's suddenly like Dan is back in the bar on their Honeymoon. He remembers the adrenaline and alcohol pumping through his veins as he got up on the stage with Helen, the last kiss he shared with Phil still tingling his lips.

The sound quality isn’t the best, it's kind of tinny as well as the other bargoers’ conversation being picked up on video, but as soon as Helen begin to sing, it's crystal clear.

All Dan can do is watch in horror as the video plays out, and Dan hears his past self begin to sing.

“This is the best day of my life,” Ebony says, leaning forward with her chin resting on her hands and grinning widely.

“Without a doubt.” Harvey agrees, watching in amusement.

“Please tell me you attempt the high note,” Nick says without lifting his gaze away from the phone, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Obviously not.”

“It’s fine, this is _more_ than enough” Ebony is positively enthralled.

“I’m not going to stand here and take this.” Dan flips her off and heads upstairs, and crawls under the bedsheets.

He doesn’t come out for the rest of the party.

\--

“Come on, misery guts” Phil says as he enters the bedroom, and yanks the bedsheets off of Dan.

“No,” Dan replies.

“If it helps, my mum and your grandma think you have a lovely voice.”

Dan sits up. “It doesn’t.”

“Well, you’re in luck. Everyone’s left, and the producers are waiting for us downstairs.”

“The producers?”

Phil shrugs. “I don’t know why either. They won’t talk to me without you.”

Dan groans and shifts to rest his head against Phil’s chest. “I just want to sleep.”

Phil wraps his arms around him and holds him close. “And we can, soon. After we figure out whose room we’re sleeping in from now on.”

It makes Dan feel warm,

“The sooner we get this meeting over with the sooner we can sleep” Phil mumbles into Dan’s hair, and Dan groans again.

“Fine.”

They get up and head downstairs, and Dan can’t help but feel a little intimidated when sat across from the two producers at the dining table, which is still littered with cans and paper plates from the surprise party.

“I’m Summer,” the female introduces, “And this is Clyde” she gestures to the man beside her.

They all shake hands, and Dan wraps his feet around the legs of his chair, a nervous habit.

As if he knows, Phil takes Dan’s hand under the table.

“We’ll get to the point, we’re all busy people here.” Clyde retrieves some papers from his briefcase, and slides them across the table to Dan and Phil.

“So just sign these and we’ll get the annulment started for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i'm sorry this took so long, life stuff escalated, mental health worsened, you know how it is
> 
> for some of you it might be a case of 'fuck i forgot i was subbed to this fic' or 'i forgot this fic existed' to which i say, i don't blame you. i don't know when the next update will be because i have tons of deadlines coming up, but i'll try to write whenever i can
> 
> but hey, how about that ending huh
> 
> did you see that coming
> 
> probably
> 
> please talk to me in the comments, let me know not everyone has forgotten about this fic thanks bye 
> 
> also pls follow me on twitter for daily/minutely phan content


	24. Twenty-Four.

Dan feels Phil’s grip on his hand tighten momentarily, then loosen to the point their hands break apart and slam against the chair frames.

“Annulment?” Dan is the one to ask, despite his throat suddenly feeling like sandpaper.

Clyde is eyeing them both closely. Summer laughs.

“Why are you both looking at us like we’re taking your firstborn child from you?” she laughs yet again, this time Clyde joins in. “You’re going to be free!”

“What if,” Phil turns to look at Dan for a moment, “What if we don’t want it?”

Summer and Clyde share a glance.

“It’s part of your contract, you don’t have a choice.” Clyde states matter-of-factly.

“Seriously, why are you looking at us like that? It’s not as if you could actually have fallen in love or anything, it’s only been a few weeks!” Summer’s laughs begin to grate on Dan more and more every time.

“You don’t know us,” Dan snaps back, well aware he sounds like a stubborn child not getting its own way.

“Oh, Christ.” Summer squeezes the bridge of her nose, and Clyde leans back in his seat.

“Listen,” Clyde places his hands on the table with more force than necessary. “You applied for this show, you both _should have_ read the contracts we sent you once you were selected, and you’re under a legal obligation to fulfil what is in that contract that _you_ signed, and this is part of it. I’m sorry if you’ve kidded yourselves into thinking you’re happy or whatever, and we couldn’t care less about what you do after all of this over, but you need to do this, or we’ll sue you for everything you have.”

“I suppose you’ll be taking this house from us too.” Dan glances to Phil, but the realisation that they’ve both already sold their flats to move into this house washes over him and suddenly he feels the intense need to throw up.

Summer rolls her eyes. “Did you both seriously not read the fucking contracts?”

The two producers’ strictly professional attitudes have been shattered in a shockingly short space of time, which would have been amusing if Dan had room for anything other than fear and worry in his mind.

He _had_ read the contracts, got Ebony and Nick to read them too, and he knows he would’ve remembered something like this.

“Sign them.” Clyde’s demanding tone of voice makes Dan pick up the pen in his shaking hand.

“What do I sign as?” he asks, and Summer shrugs.

“Couldn’t care less. Just as long as we know it’s yours.”

“But our surnames are merged,” Phil adds, and Dan notices Phil’s hand that was not long ago holding his own is now balled into a fist.

“No they’re not,” Clyde taps his fingers against the table. “That was for the sake of the show, it wasn’t a real thing. Your surnames are the same as they were.”

“And this is a real thing?”

“You are legally married,” Summer explains, “Each couple has to be legally married during the show, that’s all real. But once their episode is over so is the marriage, and everyone moves on with their lives. Why are you both looking like we’ve punched the wind out of you?”

“We don’t want to sign these.”

Summer and Clyde share another glance.

“If this is about the house, we can temporarily put you both up in a hotel for a week or two whilst you find your feet, that’s not a problem.” Clyde is still drumming his fingers on the table.

“It’s not about the house,” Phil is clearly trying to remain as calm as possible. “It’s about the fact nobody told us this would happen.” He points at the form in front of him.

Summer sighs. “If you’d have read your contract, the one you signed right before the ceremony started, you’d know this was coming.”

And there it is.

“How were we supposed to know it was something like this? We were both terrified about getting _married,_ we weren’t in any state to be signing anything like this when we’d already signed a million and one forms, you tricked us.” Phil said it on behalf of both of them.

Clyde straightens out his blazer and gets to his feet, Summer follows.

“That’s not our problem. Just sign the forms so we can be on our way.”

Dan gets to his feet too. “We’re not signing these.”

He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, he knows. He’s contractually obligated to do whatever the network wants him to do, they both are, but he won’t go down without a fight.

“Dan,” Phil’s voice is small, defeated. He places his hand gently on Dan’s leg. “Let’s just do it.”

There’s a pleading in his eyes that makes Dan sit back down and sign the form wordlessly, as Phil does.

Summer gathers the forms as she passes them, telling them someone will be in touch about the house soon, and she and Clyde see themselves out. The door closes behind them, and the house is silent.

Phil is staring at the table where the form just was, and Dan is staring at Phil, wondering why all of a sudden he just conceded. Didn’t put up a fight for their marriage.

“So what now?” Dan asks, and he watches as Phil takes a deep breath.

“I don’t know.” He gets up without another word and starts to head out of the room, but Dan scrambles to his feet and grabs his wrist.

Dan spins him around, and Phil remains composed for only a couple of seconds before breaking down and sobbing into his chest. Dan holds him as tight as he can, and leads them both over to the sofa, all the time trying his hardest not to break down himself.

\--

“Jilted and divorced,” Phil laughs bitterly, “What a fucking catch I am.”

Dan reaches over and places his hand over Phil’s. “We can get remarried.”

He knows it sounds ridiculous, but he means it. He really fucking means it.

He’s expecting Phil to agree or at least smile, but no. All he does is move his hands so he’s sitting on them, and shrugs his leg so Dan moves his hand from where it fell.

“I think we should take a break.”

It’s not what Dan was expecting to hear, nor would he expect the words to hit him quite this hard.

“Why?”

“We have a lot of thinking to do,” Phil replies without missing a beat, though he’s still avoiding Dan’s gaze as if his life is depending on it. “We’re not forced to be together anymore.”

“But,” he pauses for a moment to run a panicky hand through his hair and blink back tears. “I want to be with you.” Dan’s voice breaks.

Phil’s hand lifts as if he’s about to reach over to take Dan’s, but he sits on it again and swallows.

“You _had_ to be with me, and now you don’t.”

Silence.

“Don’t you want to be with me anymore?” Dan has to ask.

Phil finally looks at him. He looks like a wounded puppy, hurt and terrified, and Dan wagers he looks about the same.

“You know the answer to that.” His voice is barely audible.

“So why are you acting like you don’t?”

Phil squeezes his eyes shut and covers his face with his hands. But this time, Dan can’t bring himself to comfort him.

“If we take some time apart and still want to be together then we’ll work it out.”

Dan swallows back the lump in his throat. “But if you don’t?”

“If _we_ don’t,” Phil places emphasis on the we, “Then we’re free.”

When Dan doesn’t respond, Phil risks a glance over at him.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“Is this what you want?” Dan shockingly sounds more composed than he feels.

“It’s what we need.” Phil gets up and heads for the door once more, but Dan stops him.

“What I need is you.”

Phil pauses for a second longer then continues walking, and Dan waits until he hears the guest bedroom door close before breaking down completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXACTLY A YEAR LATER AND WE BACK.
> 
> yeah so uh hi? i don't really have an excuse other than the fact i lost inspiration for this story completely, and since the last update (exactly a year ago) my mental health plummeted, life stuff was amped up, other general stresses got in the way of my writing as a whole, but anyway, most importantly, i think we're back, i think we're good. 
> 
> i've spent the past three days editing the story because, as you can see, my writing style has changed in that i write in a different tense and i also edited some of the more cringe parts to be less cringe. i personally feel my style has improved a LOT since the last update, and i hope to implement that whilst also staying true to what you've read so far.
> 
> does anyone still have this fic saved or anything? there are still a lot of people subscribed to it but idk if anyone will actually read this so... hi if you are please let me know 
> 
> this fic won't have a schedule bc i don't write to strict schedules (anxiety trigger) but hopefully i'll see you soon??
> 
> oh and pls follow me on twitter @bloggerhowell ty ly bb


	25. Twenty-Five.

“So how long are we doing this?”

Phil distracts himself by moving his suitcase handle from one hand to the other. “We’ll say a week and take it from there.”

Dan nods. He’s not entirely sure if he’s allowed to kiss him goodbye or even hug him, so they go their separate ways with nothing more than a shared smile.

“Take care of yourself,” Phil calls before getting into his taxi, and Dan smiles again before getting into his own, though the smile disappears the second the door closes.

As the car pulls away from the house that isn’t theirs anymore, their possessions already heading to the same places they are, he can’t bring himself to look. So he tries to distract himself by listening to the album he’s been meaning to listen to for a while, but somehow every song reminds him of Phil. Dan’s made a living out of correcting people’s clichés, and the fact he’s now living one makes him want to claw his eyes out.

He wants to text Phil, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know where Phil’s newly built boundaries begin and end, and though he doesn’t understand them at all, he respects them.

He already misses him, though.

\--

“You’re doing all the dishes and all the washing and fetching all the parcels, that’s all I ask,” Ebony beams as she opens the door and ushers her best friend in.

Dan wishes he had the energy or reason to beam back.

When Ebony realises it’s not going to be reciprocated, her smile drops and she pulls him into an impossibly tight hug. Dan immediately begins to cry.

He’s thankful that he spent the night of the night from hell after Phil left for bed typing a huge text to Ebony and Nick letting them know everything that had happened, and even more thankful that Ebony agreed to let him stay with her on only a few days’ notice.

When Dan eventually lifts his head from Ebony’s shoulder he sees piles of boxes – his possessions that somehow beat him here – stacked in the corner of the room, taking over most of the dining room.

“How long did you have left on the house?” Ebony asks softly. It’s not a question he thought she’d ask, but it was better than _are you okay,_ which has a self-explanatory answer.

“Another week, I think. They got in contact two days ago and we just told them we were ready.”

“Which you’re not.”

“ _I’m_ not, no,” Dan replies, and wipes at his eyes. “But Phil had made arrangements to travel to his parents’ house before I knew anything about it.”

Ebony doesn’t respond then, just gently pulls away and walks into the kitchen, during which time Dan takes off his coat and shoes and waits around awkwardly. Though this is his temporary home now and he’s stayed here countless times before, this feels different.

“Living room,” she demands as she walks out with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other, and nods towards to the room in question.

“I’m not really in a wine kind of mood,” he says as he sits opposite Ebony on the sofa, and she pours both glasses regardless and holds one out to him.

“My house, my rules. Drink up.”

And he does.

\--

“Summer’s a stupid fucking name,” Ebony decides, followed by an alcohol-induced hiccup. “Stupid Summer.”

Dan laughs, definitely feeling the effects of all the alcohol they’d consumed over the past few hours.

“We went to school with a Summer.”

Ebony waves her hand dismissively. “Hated her too. She copied my spelling test in year seven.”

Dan laughs again.

“And Clyde,” Ebony continues, waving her hand around. “Fucking South Park wannabe. I only stan the best.”

She then bursts into giggles that turn so hysteric she manages to roll off of the sofa, and when Dan’s crying with laughter at her she pulls him down with her so they’re lying side by side on the carpet.

“I’ve missed this.” She sighs, and reaches to pat his head, but misses completely and her hand meets the ground with force that makes Dan cringe.

“It has been a while.” He’s staring at the ceiling, noticing how much it resembles the bedroom ceiling in the house he’s left behind.

“Well, you’re all married,” Ebony says, with another hiccup. “And stuff.”

“I was,” Dan reminds her, and she slams her hand to her forehead and groans.

“Sorry.”

Dan doesn’t respond, just pats her hand lightly.

“You’re not technically divorced yet, right?”

“May as well be.”

“Why don’t you fight for it?”

“It’d be one sided.”

A few minutes of silence.

“Want to eat until we pass out?”

“This is why I love you.”

\--

He’s awoken by his phone, and he doubts he’s ever answered a call quicker, without even checking the caller ID, he’s beyond desperate to speak to Phil again.

“Hello?” he cringes at how raspy his voice is, and not in the appealing way, in the way that shows he needs to drink a vase full of water.

“Daniel Howell?” comes an unfamiliar voice.

He feels his stomach drop when it isn’t Phil, but he doesn’t have it in him to be rude.

“Actually it’s-“ he stops himself when he remembers he isn’t Howell-Lester, there’s barely any Lester in his life right now. “Yeah, yeah sorry that’s me.”

“Good morning, mister Howell, I’m calling to chase you up on a proposition we emailed you about a couple of weeks ago.”

It takes him a second, but he remembers. He completely forgot to reply, given that he was on his Honeymoon.

“I’ve just had a lot of personal issues lately, it just completely slipped my mind, I apologise.”

He squeezes the bridge of his nose, sounding professional whilst mildly hungover isn’t one of his specialities.

“Happens to the best of us,” the woman, Julienne if he remembers correctly, jokes. “So can we expect to see you for the initial meeting soon?”

“Of course, thank you for thinking of me first.”

“Amazing! Someone will be in touch via email in the next few days with all of the details, we look forward to working with you again, Daniel!”

“Me too, thank you again.”

“Have a lovely rest of your day, goodbye!”

“You too, bye.”

He throws his phone back down and groans into a cushion he pulls down from the sofa.

“You sounded hungover as shit.”

Dan snaps his head up and Ebony is sat in the chair opposite the sofa with a smirk on her face, and she takes a bite of her toast.

“It’s your fault.”

She shrugs. “Got you to stop moping.”

“In my defence,” Dan sits up, “I’m allowed to mope, my marriage is failing and my husband doesn’t want to speak to me.”

She dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “I’m hearing a lot of excuses and no solutions.” She takes another bite. “Have you even called him?”

“I’m giving him space.”

Ebony throws the remainder of her toast at him. “Excuses!”

“Will you stop throwing things at me if I call him?” he holds up his hands defensively, guarding himself against the cushion she has in her hand, ready to throw.

She nods and grins, and he rolls his eyes. He’s secretly thankful he’s had a push to actually do it, considering he’s been wanting to pretty much since they parted.

He takes a deep breath and presses the call icon next to Phil’s name.

It rings out.

“Voicemail. Happy?”

Ebony pouts. “That’s no fun. How long does he usually sleep in?”

He doesn’t. Dan knows Phil doesn’t sleep in.

He settles on a shrug, it’s the easier of two options.

“Whatever. I have to go to work, can I trust you not to trash the place?”

“I don’t know, me and my millions of friends might come and wreck it in a mad party.”

She smiles. “Just lock my bedroom door.”

“It’ll be the designated sex room.”

“Well, it’ll be the most action it’s seen in months.”

“Gross.”

She laughs and throws the cushion at him anyway, then moves to her room to get changed.

\--

“So you’re taking a week’s break?” Nick asks.

“A week minimum, might be more.”

Nick smiles sympathetically through the webcam.

“Well for what it’s worth, Dodie says he’s been miserable, they went out last night and he just stared into his drink all night.”

“And how do you know that?”

“We’ve been texting back and forth since your housewarming.”

Dan sighs dramatically. “Please don’t hook up with my husband’s best friend and never call her again.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll choose to ignore that.”

Dan smirks.

“But I do have to let her know how I think you’re doing after this skype call ends.”

“She cares that much?”

“A certain someone asked her to ask me.”

Dan leans back and manoeuvres his laptop. “So he’s speaking through other people instead of talking to me.”

Nick shrugs. “I don’t understand it either, for what it’s worth.”

Dan smiles, though it drops a second after.

“So what should I tell her?”

“Whatever you think, however you think I am.”

Nick presses his lips together for a moment.

“Anything you want me to pass along for Phil?”

Of course there is, but nothing he wants all the middlemen to know. So he shakes his head.

“Go and tell her now, I have some stuff to do before this meeting next week,” Dan says when he notices Nick’s attention constantly being drawn to his phone, and the smile that grows on his lips every time. He knows that smile.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Ebs will be home soon anyway, you know you’ll never be able to escape if she finds us on skype.”

“Good point,” Nick laughs. “I’ll text you soon.”

“Wow, don’t strain yourself.”

Nick laughs again. “Asshole,” he says before ending the call, and Dan continues to stare at the screen.

He has no work to do, he doesn’t have anything to do. He could get in touch with Terry and find out what he knows about this whole situation, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything, doesn’t have the energy to do anything. He falls asleep out of pure boredom.

It’s not quite how he imagined married life to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the support on the last chapter, it truly does mean the world to me that so many people are still sticking with this story despite the year-long hiatus :)


	26. Twenty-Six.

\--

“The client will be along in a moment, please make yourself comfortable, Daniel.”

The receptionist then rushes out of the room.

This is the part he hasn’t missed at all. The awkward initial meetings with the author he’ll be editing for. The too-big round table, the jug of water that is probably a week stale, the biscuits that most definitely are. The general atmosphere of these kind of offices, Lucky Star especially.

He also finds it quite weird that the author is referred to as _the client,_ he thinks he should be the client if anyone, but he’s probably referred as it to the author so he shrugs it off and picks up a custard cream, and promptly drops it back on the plate when it has an unappealing green patch growing on the bottom of it.

Maybe they’re more than a week stale.

Thankfully saving him from any more biscuit debacles, the door opens again and the receptionist ushers in a woman around Dan’s age. She walks in a confident manner, prettily made up, dresses nice.

Dan stands to shake her hand and the receptionist leaves them once more, saying they’ll be back to escort them back to the lobby in an hour.

“Dan Howell,” he introduces. He really has to bite his tongue from not adding Phil’s surname on the end. It’s harder than he expected.

“Sapphire.” She shakes his hand with a large amount of enthusiasm, and they both take their seats, on opposite ends of the table.

“Sapphire…” Dan leads on, he considers it professional to get the full names of the people he works with.

“Just Sapphire is fine.” She smiles again, and reaches to pour herself a glass of water.

Dan nods, happy he was courteous enough to ask, but not caring enough to pry. He’s only editing her words, it’s not like he’s designing the front cover or writing her acknowledgements.

He watches as Sapphire takes a sip of water, and struggles to fight his laughter as her mouth pulls into an immediate frown, and she dithers as she’s forced to swallow it.

“Stale?”

She nods and pushes the glass to the middle of the table. “Guess I’m new to this.”

“I’m an elder by this point,” Dan laughs, “Just a tip, the water in meeting rooms is always stale.”

Sapphire taps her temple and shoots him a thumbs up. “Got it.”

They share a laugh, and get down to business.

\--

The meetings ends right on time and Dan leaves with a really good feeling about this project, Sapphire no-surname seems perfectly nice and open to ideas (not that Dan has any unless they’re asked for, it’s not his place) and another meeting arranged for a couple of weeks’ time.

He’s just bought a bottle of water when his phone begins to ring, and his best friend is suddenly demanding his attention.

“Ebony-“

“ _I know exactly what you have to do!”_

Her shrieking is so loud it gathers the attention of passersby, one man even grumbling under his breath to ‘take it off speakerphone’, which it isn’t on in the first place. Ebony is just very loud when she’s excitable. Or has an idea.

“About?”

_“About your marriage, dumbass!”_

“I told you-“

“ _Shut up and get back here so you can pack your bags.”_

“Spell it out for me, Ebs.”

_“I booked you a train ticket for first thing in the morning!”_

“What-“

_“You’re going to go and surprise him! All romantic like! Trust me this will work!”_

“You’re literally insane.”

“ _I’m a genius, I know! Just get back here so we can start packing for you, we need to decide what your grand gesture is going to be!”_

“My what?”

_“You’re not a flowers on the doorstep kind of guy, but we’ll find out what you are! Now stop wasting time and get back!”_

“But-“

She ends the call.

\--

“So I haven’t gone in any of them, obviously, but I _have_ laid out all your boxes over there,” Ebony runs up to greet Dan before he’s even fully through the door, and points eagerly over to the dining room where instead of being piled in the corner, the boxes are now laid in neat rows spilling into different rooms.

“Please slow down and explain exactly what the fuck you did.”

Ebony takes a deep breath, but breaks back into the same grin as before.

“I booked you a train ticket to go and surprise Phil!”

“I don’t think he wants to see me…”

“Bullshit,” Ebony pinches his cheek and her grin only grows. “Everyone wants to see this ugly mug and crater dimples.”

This makes Dan smile as he bats his friend’s hand away. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were flirting with me, young one.”

Ebony rolls her eyes. “Married gays aren’t my type, babe.”

Dan throws his head back and laughs and pulls Ebony into a hug. Though he won’t admit it, he’s so glad she’s done what she has.

“What do you think I should wear?”

“I think your birthday suit would be the most effective,” Ebony taps a finger to her chin. “But he’s staying with his parents so maybe not. Just whatever is the least creased, I guess.”

“Don’t you own an iron?”

“Has more cobwebs than the old diamond mine.”

When Dan looks at her quizzically, she drops her gaze downward for a moment.

Dan feels his eyes widen. “People call it that?”

Ebony shrugs. “This people does.”

“Explains why it has cobwebs if that’s the kind of line you pull.”

“Not all of us have tv shows to fall back on to find love!” She crosses her arms across her chest, though she’s stifling a laugh.

“Can we just get to packing for me so we can stop talking about nicknames for your vagina?”

That’s when Ebony loses it and breaks down into laughter once more. “Almost as if the topic makes you uncomfortable.”

“You make me uncomfortable.” He flips her off and goes over to the boxes and starts taking various objects out, deciding if they’re worth taking.

Ebony comes over to help once she’s recovered.

“What’s this?” she asks, and when Dan looks over he feels a chill run down his spine. Ebony spins the star ornament from the Honeymoon around in her hands.

“A star, by the look of it,” his answer is forced, obviously so as his voice cracks, and Ebony glances over to him for a second before turning her attention back to the ornament in her hands.

Dan stares at it too. He’s sure that it was packed in one of Phil’s boxes, and it’s definitely now in one of Dan’s as it’s in with some of his clothes that Ebony was sorting through. So whether it was purposefully by Phil or by random chance on the movers’ behalves, Dan swallows back what he wants to say and just softly shakes his head and Ebony places it on the dining table.

\--

“How did you know what station to book the ticket to?” Dan asks the question that he’s been dying to ask for hours.

Now he’s finally packed for the morning and they’re eating dinner, a takeaway, naturally, he can afford to ask what’s on his mind.

“I asked where he lived when we met at the wedding, obviously.” Ebony’s eyes never leave the screen.

“And that’s not creepy at all.”

“I wanted to know more about my best friend’s husband, it’s not a crime, you dick.”

“What do I do when I arrive at the station? I don’t know his fucking address.”

Ebony throws her discarded pizza crust across the sofa at him. It bounces from his forehead, she finds it hilarious.

“I’m going to text you the address, keep your candy underwear on.”

Dan misses her laugh. “How did you-“

Ebony snaps her head at that, her eyes wide and her mouth drops open. “You _do not_ own those.”

Dan darts his gaze down to his plate and suffers through another bout of Ebony’s hysterics. During which time he thinks.

“Nick got the address from Dodie didn’t he.”

“Hey, not just a pretty face!” Ebony reaches over to pat his head lightly.

“So Dodie knows I’m going?”

Ebony shakes her head. “Nick doesn’t either, just you and me. But he found a while ago, just came up in conversation I guess.”

“And he just happened to tell you?”

She nods, once again transfixed on the screen.

“Why didn’t you tell _me?”_

“I assumed you knew,” she says through a mouthful of pizza, “Given the fact you’re fucking married.”

“Well-“

“You _are_ married,” she holds up her hand dismissively and cuts him off. “Still are until you both give up, which none of you have.”

“I’d argue that-“

“No.”

“But I told you how-“

“No.”

Dan admits defeat and settles in to watch the rest of the show before heading for an early night.

He has trouble falling asleep. He’s never been a particularly impulsive or spontaneous person, so to agree to go along with Ebony’s crazy plan is so unlike him.

But, he thinks as he smiles to himself, he quite likes being impulsive when it comes to Phil.


	27. Twenty-Seven.

\--

_Dan: there’s no way this is going to work_

_Dan: why did i let you talk me into this_

_Ebony: it is going to work_

_Ebony: because you loooooooooove him_

_Ebony: and he looooooooooooves you_

_Ebony: i feel like cupid_

_Ebony: but younger and cuter_

_Dan: do you even hear yourself when you talk_

_Ebony: i learned to tune it out years ago_

_Ebony: are you there yet?_

_Dan: oh yeah_

_Dan: i’ve been stood outside for like two minutes now_

_Ebony: so you’re just_

_Ebony: stood outside of this house_

_Ebony: staring??_

_Dan: fair point_

_Dan: but what if you’ve given me the wrong address_

_Dan: i don’t think i could handle it_

_Ebony: GO._

_Dan: i hate you_

_Ebony: and i love love_

Dan pockets his phone and picks up his case and takes deep breath after deep breath as he walks up the front path of the supposed Lester family home. Everything is picturesque and well kept, and the house looks like it belongs in a catalogue. Like the typical white picket fence house most people dream of.

He barely registers knocking on the door and he can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he hears footsteps getting closer.

“Daniel!” Phil’s mum pulls him in for a big hug straight away, and pulls away with a grin.

“Just Dan, please,” he smiles, and she nods.

“Just Kath, please,” she teases, and ushers him inside.

“Nigel’s out with some friends and Martyn isn’t visiting until next weekend, so it’s just us for now.” She switches off the television in the living room and gestures for Dan to make himself comfortable.

Dan’s just about to question why she hasn’t mentioned Phil, but she excuses herself to make a quick phone call.

_Dan: i don’t think he’s here_

_Ebony: what_

_Ebony: why isn’t he there_

_Ebony: why is he ruining my romantic dreams_

_Dan: why are you replying within three seconds_

_Ebony: what else do i have to do to pass the time_

_Ebony: except live vicariously through your love life_

_Ebony: WHY ISN’T HE THERE_

_Ebony: HE SAID HE WAS STAYING WITH HIS PARENTS RIGHT_

_Dan: he did_

_Dan: i’m so confused_

_Ebony: you have a tongue in your head. use it. ask._

_Dan: would that not be weird_

_Ebony: a s k._

“Sorry about that!” Kath re-enters the room with two steaming mugs. She hands one to Dan and sits in the chair beside the sofa and smiles warmly. “Phil told me your favourite, so I just went with it.” She nods towards the mug in his hands.

“This is lovely, thank you,” Dan takes a small sip and smiles over at her.

He wants to ask where Phil is but also doesn’t. And doesn’t know how.

So he doesn’t, and they ignore the elephant in the room for at least an hour.

Dan’s phone buzzes regularly during the time, but he ignores it out of politeness and has a long chat with Kath, which he enjoys every second of. They talk about anything and everything, something and nothing, it’s light and it’s easy. But Dan can’t deny that he misses Phil. Being in his family home has only confirmed just how much.

“Am I okay to just go and change? I’m just feeling the effects of that train journey.”

Kath smiles. “Of course, love, Phil’s bedroom is the first one on the right at the top of the stairs.”

Dan thanks her and makes his way there, and drops his case as soon as he opens the door.

Everything is just so _Phil._

A mismatch of colours, posters all over the walls, various photographs over the dresser and shelves, it’s just all so Phil, and Dan loves it.

He doesn’t know when this room was decorated, whether it was during Phil’s childhood and he’s just adapted it over time, but Dan can imagine Phil as he is now decorating just the same.

After quickly changing clothes and placing his case on the bed, he takes the time to really look around. There’s a pang in his chest that tells him that this should’ve been sooner, in a conventional sense the first time Dan should’ve seen this room is when they were dating, when Dan stayed over for the first time and slept over for the first time, anything but the reality. Anything but this stupid reality where they’re married, then divorced, now barely speaking.

He spots the glistening silver picture frame in front of all the others on the dresser. Inside it, their wedding picture. In a smaller frame beside it, a picture clearly taken at the reception of Phil and his parents and brother, all smiling and looking like they’re having the best time. It makes Dan smile just looking at it, Phil looks happy.

He picks up their wedding picture and really stares at it, and it blows his mind a little at the fact that they look like a legitimate couple. If someone were to look at this picture who didn’t know their situation, and didn’t know that they met at their wedding for the first time less than half an hour before, they just might be fooled into thinking it was all normal.

Dan bites his lip and puts the picture back down.

It’s a good sign that Phil has it, at least.

His phone continues to buzz, and he has time to humour his best friend now it won’t be rude to do so like when he was with Kath, so he returns to a stream of hysterical caps-lock texts from his best friend, and a few missed calls and missed facetime calls.

_Dan: i have like five minutes if you want to call do it now_

Immediately, Ebony is requesting to facetime.

Dan sits down on the bed and accepts the call.

“How’s it going with the in-laws?” She greets, leaning in close to the phone.

“It’s just his mum, but we’ve had cups of coffee and nice chats so I can’t really complain.”

Ebony smirks. “You can considering the reason you went there has just fell flat on its ass.”

“I’m trying to make the best of the situation.”

Ebony laughs. “First time for everything.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Fuck you.”

“Still not my type.” She winks dramatically.

“What do I do, seriously? Do I just stay in his house until his mum decides to tell me where he is?”

Ebony’s face falls, and presses her lips together.

“When you look like that it doesn’t give me much confidence.” Dan feels worry pool in his stomach.

“Surprise?” she says, and looks to the side for a second.

“Are you high?”

Ebony simply turns her phone to the left, and the quality worsens for a few seconds as it adjusts to the sudden movement, but when it does, it focuses on Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> Be sure to leave a kudos and comment, share if you liked it and subscribe for email notifications when I update this fic in the future!
> 
> Come chat with me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/bloggerhowell) and [tumblr](http://cafephan.tumblr.com/) and thank you so much for reading


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